Recently, “Khadi India” has made an important decision tying up with global cloth giants Peter England and Raymonds. This means, that the fabric will be sold at these stores only. The decision is intended to make the fabric reach to international market. This has been taken as one of the non-conventional decisions adopted by Khadi & Village Industries Commission (KVIC). This will emphasise greatly on its brand image in a positive way among the international buyers.
But, seems like Congress leaders are not liking the news so much. Balkrishna Khinchi of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee has released a press release, criticizing the memorandum of understanding among Khadi and other Village Industries Commission and also Raymonds. As per this MOU, they will allow the sale of this material from all 2,300 bunches which are responsible for producing Khadi products. In this, Raymond has assured of a guaranteed initial capture of a plethora of Khadi fabrics. As per Economic Times, this move is intended to build a similar kind of market potential for them which the famous Fabindia has.
[themify_quote]“The arrangement is, they (Raymond and Peter England) will buy Khadi from us and will design, stitch and whatever else they want to do”
~ KVIC Chairman V K Saxena[/themify_quote]
The company is a public sector company and is also considering to move into e-business. KVIC’s first plan of selling khadi fabric includes listing it on Paytm which will do great in favour of the industry.
In the protest, the Rajasthan Congress leader mentioned Khadi as not just a fabric but lifestyle and flair of thinking which was adopted by Mahatma Gandhi first and then is now considered as a gift to India from him. As per this MOU, they mentioned that, Raymond and the Centre will likely make the fabric unaffordable for poor. Khinchi also said that, the fabric giant, Raymond will surely benefit from the MOU, but the poor section of the workers will be getting least benefit from it.
