Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to the people to buy khadi has led to a 40% jump in sales of the cloth all over the country and around 20% in Madhya Pradesh.
Khadi and Village Industries Commission, Bhopal, director Praveer Kumar stated this while talking to media here on Sunday.
Kumar said that it was a wrong notion that khadi is out of common people’s reach. “There is a very huge variety in khadi clothes. “Khadi clothes are available from Rs 70 per metre to Rs 7,000 per metre. In any case, hand-made things are costlier than machine-made articles” he added.
According to Kumar, khadi and village industries are big employers. “We give employment to more than 71,000 people in Madhya Pradesh alone,” he remarked.
When coronavirus spread, there were reports of large-scale migration of workers in difficult circumstances. “But not a single spinner or weaver associated with the khadi industry had to migrate for want of work,” he said.
However, the sale of KVIC products decreased due to corona. The sales in the state fell from Rs 3.74 core in 2019-20 to Rs 1.71 crore in 2020-21. In the current fiscal year, the sales have been only Rs 35 lakh (till June this year). “During corona period, sales were limited to masks, sanitisers and soaps,” he said.
Kumar said sale of khadi clothes was less in Madhya Pradesh compared to Bihar, UP, Rajasthan and other Hindi-speaking states. That, he said, may be due to the difference in dressing habits.
A 9-day state-level exhibition-cum-sale of KVIC products has begun at Khadi India Lounge, Saraswati Nagar, on Sunday. The exhibition will remain open from 11 am to 9 pm. Khadi and village industries units from all over the state have displayed their products at the expo.
