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Fashion education is set to get a new
status. Students aspiring for management schools may now
find an attractive alternative in the field of fashion.
The National Institute of Fashion Technology
(Nift) will soon be in the league of IITs, IIMs and AIIMS.
The government is working on a Bill, which will accord
Nift the Constitutional status of "Institute of National
Importance," enabling it to offer degrees in fields
of fashion.
Currently NIFT is under the administrative
control of the Textile ministry.
The new status will also change the administrative
set-up of the institution. A search committee in the model
of IITs and IIMs will be formed to appoint chairman, director
general, directors and senior functionaries of Nift.
"In its new avtar, the institution
will have autonomy in the true sense. All major appointments
will be made by a search committee, in the name of the
President of India," a senior Nift official told
ET.
Currently, Nift is an autonomous institution under Ministry
of Textiles and its secretary is the chairman of the institution.
When contacted, textile secretary and
Nift chairman R Poornalingam confirmed that the ministry
was drafting a Bill to put Nift in the list of institute
of national importance.
Under the Indian Constitution, the Parliament
is empowered to declare any institution as the institution
of national importance. The Bill will be tabled in the
Cabinet soon. After Cabinet's approval, it will be placed
in the Parliament for an enactment.
The decision to elevate Nift to the level
of IITs and IIMs has been taken by the government in the
light of rapidly changing India's position in the global
textile trade post-MFA.
The institute is expected to provide
higher technical and management education in the field
of fashion to meet the growing manpower requirement by
the sector. The new status will help the institute to
achieve this target.
The Nift was registered in 1986 as a society under the
Societies Registration Act. It conducts professional programmes
in the disciplines of apparel merchandising and marketing,
fashion design and garment manufacturing technology.
Besides offering some management programmes,
it also imparts training through continuing education
programmes, seminars, workshops and consultancy services.
It has seven centres in New Delhi, Bangalore,
Chennai, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.
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