Sales and production of khadi products has gained considerable momentum in the southern districts of late mainly as a result of interventions by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) to modernise the production and sales processes. The production of khadi products in the KVIC Madurai Division increased to Rs. 24.74 crore in 2011-12 from Rs. 18.12 crore in the preceding fiscal, an increase of 36 per cent, K. Mohan Raju, Director of KVIC Madurai division, which comprises 10 districts, told The Hindu .
Likewise, the sales figures grew to Rs. 33.31 crore in 2011-12 from Rs. 27.33 crore in the previous financial year, an increase of 22 per cent.
Village industries
A similar increase was witnessed in the village industries sector with production increasing to Rs. 201.90 crore in 2010-11 from Rs. 192.08 crore in the previous fiscal, an increase of 5 per cent. The sales figures registered an increase reaching Rs. 224.46 crore in 2010-11 from Rs. 219.73 crore the preceding fiscal, an increase of 2 per cent.
The interventions of KVIC include taking artisans on exposure visits to other States and opening bank accounts to all the workers so that the wages could be credited directly.
The KVIC Divisional Office of Madurai, he said, had sponsored 1,031 units under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) between 2008-09 and 2011-12 with the total margin money subsidy working out to Rs. 15.12 crore. The new employment generation was around 9,495.
For the current financial year, he said that 151 projects have been targeted with the margin money allotted being Rs. 3.46 crore and an employment generation 1,208 targeted. Under the Janashree Bima Yojana – an insurance policy for KVIC artisans - 3,696 artisans have been enrolled with 661 having obtained educational scholarships from it. An Artisan Welfare Trust has been formed for the benefit of artisans. A total of Rs. 65.22 lakh had been credited into the Trust with half the amount coming from the artisans and the rest from their respective Sarvodhaya Sanghs (SS).
Mr. Raju also informed that a Khadi cluster at Kandalur in Karaikudi is going to be commissioned soon under the Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI).
It will have three partners in Virudhunagar SS, Karikudi SS and Aruppukottai SS.
The KVIC has given Rs. 98 lakh as grant for this project with the three SSs contribution being Rs. 20.4 crore.
The cluster has 313 jharkas, 36 handlooms and a common facility centre for bleaching and dying, ready-warping machine besides a mini-sizing cum warping unit.
