The Hindu Business Line : Rekindle the spirit of khadi

Amid the melee triggered by the nuclear deal controversy and trauma of Nandigram in West Bengal, an event of significance that passed unobtrusively this week was the golden jubilee celebration of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), set up way back in April 1957. Interestingly, the authorities everywhere find the going tough to evict farmers or villagers from their traditional vocation following their penchant for faster industrialisation and creation of spe cial economic zones (SEZs), even as they swear by inclusive economic growth.

Spirit of khadi

The spirit of Khadi, symbolising India’s self-respect and self-reliance from the servitude of imperial power way back in the pre-independent India, is undoubtedly worthy to be revived. What better way to do this than commemorate the KVIC’s 50th year of existence. With imported goods adorning the country’s malls and companies making a bid to leave their footprints abroad through the route of merger and acquisition in these days of globalisation, any hymn to preserve local tradition, crafts and rural resources — both people and material — may not gel well with the current thinking.

Self-reliance

The basic remit of KVIC was to ensure rural employment, produce saleable articles from the country’s bucolic backyards and foster self-reliance among people and build up a robust rural community spirit. Has the organisation fulfilled any one of the laudable objectives in its chequered career of five decades to the satisfaction of the rural people?

Vast network

No doubt, KVIC has a network of Khadi and Village Industries Boards (KVIBs) at the State and Union Territory level and registered Khadi and Village industries institutions. Around 5,000 registered societies and over 2.26 lakhs entrepreneurial units are with KVIC that boasts of 7,000 sales outlets spread all over the country.

In the Tenth Plan (2002-07), khadi industry production was 4 per cent and employment just one per cent; village industries’ production grew by 19 per cent and employment by 9 per cent. While together the average KVI production and employment appear respectable, this has not been sufficient to prevent large-scale migration of rural people to urban areas, putting greater pressure on civic infrastructure.

Achievements

No doubt, KVIC has several milestones such as the revival of Dhaka Muslin in 1971, setting up of centralised sliver/roving forming facilities and the development of standards for charkha, in collaboration with the Bureau of Indian Standards, and e-charkha where the spinner while plying the charkha rotates an armature/dynamo which in turn charges a battery.

This allows the spinner to light his/her dwelling place, listen to transistor and re-charge the cell-phone! For all its innovations in areas covering khadi, rural industry service centres, marketing and science and technology, the average turnover of KVIC seldom exceeded Rs 500 crore per annum in the last five years.

A lift-up

That is the reason why both the President, Ms Pratibha Patil, and the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, at the KVIC celebrations on November 19, underscored the need for Indians to set apart a small portion of the household budget to buy khadi products. This would boost sales by over Rs 100 crore and provide gainful occupation to the rural artisans.

It is time Urban India woke up to the living conditions in the rural areas and gave a leg-up to institutions such as KVIC.

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