Chapter 5: Industry 4.0, AI and Textile Sector in India^*

Industry 4.0 broadly implies the digital transformation of industrial works. In India’s industrial arena, the textile industry is extremely important in the non-farm sector, both regarding value addition and employment generation. This chapter attempts to think about new avenues of research while integrating different streams of literature. For example – literature on innovation, literature on the industrial ecosystem, literature on industry 4.0, and consequences for the Indian economy – all such streams of literature have been considered synoptically to think of a new research program. The focus of this research program is to explore pathways of synergizing these different literatures and thinking about how to integrate and apply innovations for the betterment of the unorganized manufacturing sector in India. The unorganized manufacturing sector is a vast area in India, so here, we focus on some specific sections of the textile sector which is the handloom weaving industry. How have changes in techniques happened within the handloom weaving sector so far? What are the possible ways of applying these new technologies in altering the products and processes within the textile sector? What can the government do in this regard? These are the research questions that need attention in today’s context, and we have not found serious works in this direction in the context of the Indian economy; hence, we are investigating these issues in this chapter.