Khadi and Village Industry Commission (KVIC), Chairman, VK Saxena on Sunday said that of over 7,000 sale outlets of KVIC across India, 1,000 would be modernised by the end of current financial year.
Saxena, who inaugurated one of such modernised outlets in Ahmedabad said that Rs50 crore have been allotted for the purpose of modernisation of such outlets. The KVIC would modernise all the sales outlets in phase manner in future, he said, adding that role of the sales persons at the outlets would be important in order to makeover image of KVIC outlets.
He said that huge demand for Khadi has been generated following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to wear Khadi at least once in a week. Several PSUs, Government departments and even the private companies have initiated adopting Khadi as uniforms for their staff and employess, he claimed.
“Recently JK Cement placed an order of 7000 meters dress material to KVIC for employees Uniform. Further Minister of Petroleum Daremndra Pradhan has also issued directives to all oil companies under his ministry to adopt Khadi for uniforms of permanent as well as temporary employees,” he added.
According to Saxena even in the last financial year when other similar industries were not doing well and reported the growth of just 5 to 7%, Khadi registered a jump of 29% in the sales. During the year 2014-15, the total sale of Khadi was Rs1170 crores which has gone up to Rs1520 crores during the year 2015-16, which itself shows the growing demand of Khadi in the Country, he said.
To generate more demand, KVIC has for the first time given franchisee to 18 people in various cities which will add to sales of Khadi, said Saxena.