Rural employment through Khadi

Khadi is a coarse material. It is handspun on ‘charkha’, the spinning wheel. It stays cool in summers and warm in winters.

Khadi in the history of India is known to be a major factor in starting a movement. Mahatma Gandhi the father of our nation used to wear the only khadi which he himself spun and made.

Cotton was grown majorly in India during the British rule. It was transported to Manchester where it was woven and clothes were made in the industries and sent back to India where it was sold at exorbitant prices. This along with other factors was leading to a drop in the Indian economy.

Gandhi saw khadi as a source to help the poor living in villages to earn a living. He saw khadi as a self-sufficient material.  This became a movement that aimed at boycotting foreign goods and promoting Indian goods which would intern boost the Indian economy. This movement gave birth to swaraj. Khadi also became a symbol for political agendas during India’s independence struggle. Hence khadi became the weapon of non-violence and played a major role in India’s independence.

Khadi is the type of fabric that Mahatma Gandhi wants all of the Indians to use in protest of the British products.  Gandhiji wanted the Indians to use khadi for it is a product of India. Moreover, with the use of khadi, the boycott of foreign goods will not have any impact on the Indian people.

During India’s freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi collected money from different sections of society to create a grass-roots organization to encourage handloom weaving – this was called the ‘khaddar’ or ‘Khadi’ movement. … Gandhi also took to spinning with a Charkha and promoted khadi for rural self-employment.

Khadi movement was started by Gandhiji, the Khadi movement promoted an ideology, an idea that Indians could be self-reliant on cotton and be free from foreign cloth and clothing. …

The khadi movement aimed at boycotting foreign goods including cotton and promoting Indian goods, thereby improving India’s economy

              Gandhiji promoted khadi then because he saw it as a way to increase employment in the non-agricultural sector. He wanted to make Indians understand that they could be self-reliant on cotton and be free from the high-priced foreign goods

        Mahatma Gandhi initiated the Swadeshi movement by taking up the charkha and encouraging the Indians to spin their own cloth.  The Swadeshi movement increased the demand for Indian Cotton Textile and Indian Textile Industry grew by leaps and bounds. Indigenous Industries began to spring up and lay their stronghold in the global industry, now the country is the world’s second-largest textile manufacturers.

Indian Spinning Companies and Khadi manufacturers are now taking part in International Events in the Textile space.

       Unemployment is one of the major challenges faced by Indians today. Khadi be a great solution for this burning problem.

                                  Khadi is a thought process and it aims to create employment and transform lives also improving the Indian economy.

                     The government is targeting KVIC to boost job creation in the rural and tribal areas and improve the purchasing power of people.

                        For generating employment for youth, our government is implementing a number of schemes to provide employment opportunities in micro-level industries. These schemes are specially developed for providing jobs for unemployed youth by generating self-employment opportunities via establishing micro industries.

                 This scheme allows unemployed youth to get loans (finance) at a subsidized rate to create a small business and micro-level industries…Such khadi industries again play an important role to generate job opportunities for farmers, spinners, weavers, artisans, designers, and so many peoples.

KVIC is a statutory body formed by the Government of India under the KVIC Act of 1956 that aims to nurse employment and economic uplift in rural India.

Influenced by Gandhiji’s Swadeshi Movement and Gandhian thoughts of rural development.

KVIC full form is Khadi and Village Industries Commission constituted as an apex body under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises to help plan, promote, facilitate, organize and aid in the development of Khadi manufacturing in rural India in conjunction with other agencies involved in rural development.

Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, through Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), has taken various initiatives to make Khadi an international brand.

Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) is generating Rural employment for thousands of persons by implementing the schemes of Market Development Assistance (MDA), Interest Subsidy Eligibility Certificate (ISEC) scheme, Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), and Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) throughout the country. During the current year, under PMEGP, Rs. 657.84 crore margin money has been utilized for setting up of 29,174 projects and providing employment to 2.11 lakh persons. Twelve SFURTI clusters under Khadi and Village Industries categories have been granted final approval for projects costing Rs. 17.69 crore. Assistance under SFURTI amounting to Rs. 14.82 crore has been sanctioned out of which Rs. 7.94 crores has been released benefiting around 5,700 artisans.

INITIATIVES TAKEN

* To ensure the genuineness of Khadi “Khadi Mark” has been notified.

* Khadi & Village Industries Institutions have taken their membership to enter the field of export.

* Tie up an arrangement with premier institutions like the Federation of Indian Export Organization (FIEO), World Trade Centre (WTC), Indian Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO), Trade Promotion Council of India, etc., for invigorating business opportunities in the overseas market by conducting exhibitions and workshops for Khadi Institutions.

*To the unique identity of “Khadi”, a separate HS code for 22 items of Khadi products is also requested.

OBJECTIVES OF KVIC

The social objective of providing Rural employment.

The economic objective of producing saleable articles.

The wider objective of creating self-reliance amongst the poor and building up of a strong rural community spirit.

In the last five years, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) through its various schemes including Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), Khadi, Kumhaar Sashaktikaran Yojana (Potters’ Empowerment Scheme), and Honey Mission, has created 2.17 million new jobs.

The sale of Khadi products has reached 1.56 Billion US Dollars, in the last five years.

How Sewagram Khadi making the difference…..

‘Cotton to Cloth’ is not just the name of the project but is the hope and inspiration of many young rural people today. Wardha- The Gandhicity.. has a rich tradition of Khadi. Mahatma Gandhi stayed at Sewagram and encouraged all to wear Khadi. Gandhiji believed that the khadi sector would generate rural employment and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been promoting Khadi to create sustainable employment in Khadi sector, taking inspiration from these two leaders, Balwant Dhage – a young entrepreneur from Wardha, has developed Khadi Manufacturing and Fashion Industry and inspiring the world to generate employment as his project is been generating from last 8 years.

                     Balwant Dhage believed in the Rural employment -generating capacity of the Khadi sector and its importance to support farmers. As Vidarbha is a cotton-growing belt but we do not do any processing on cotton to enhance its value, He developed the project “Cotton to Cloth” as khadi is completely hand-made which can be done at village level and it can give employment to farmers in large quantity even the appropriate value for their cotton crop, and also by establishing processing units, he can generate numbers of jobs for youth, farmers, spinners, weavers, garments designers, and to many more. He named his dream project – “Global Enterprises, Pvt. ltd” and set up a textile manufacturing and processing plant at Sewagram, Wardha.

                       Today, at his Wardha-based plant all the processes start from buying cotton as raw material from farmers then spinning, weaving process, dyeing, printing and up to designing and manufacturing of a wide range of pure khadi designer clothing including Khadi masks, Men’s wear, Women’s clothing is made.

                    With his efforts to create employment

and with help of some Government scheme, he has been giving training of spinning and weaving through ‘Charkha’ and ‘Loom’ to women at many villages in Wardha district, so that hundreds of women become self-reliant and are able to make cloth from there own cotton produced. This hand-made pure khadi fabric is brought later to his Wardha based plant to continue the further process and turn this fabric into new fashion clothing. These pure khadi products are available in the market under the brand name – Sewagram Khadi and Ecotattv.

                          Today Sewagram Farm to Fashion(Global Enterprises Pvt Ltd) is probably the only industry producing Muslin Khadi all over Maharashtra, with of thread count above 80 which makes the cloth softer and finer than others. Also playing a vital role in Women Empowerment by providing more than 95 ‘Charakhas’ and more than 85 ‘Looms’ to rural women to be independent, and more than 25 women are working at their stitching unit. “Lot of female employees are earning up to 12,000 per month by working from home on Charkha and Loom project ” – said sources.

                      Thus the project “Cotton to Cloths” is now hitting the jackpot and has become “Cotton to India’s Leading Fashion Brand “, and also making a huge difference in the sector of Original Khadi Manufacturing and Women Empowerment.