Textiles Committee, the Government-run quality assurance agency has recently signed an MoU with Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) as an external agency for ensuring the quality of the products.
Interview with Ajit B Chavan, Secretary, Textiles Committee, Ministry of Textiles, said, “In implementing the scheme of Khadi mark, KVIC has entered in to an MOU on 01.03.2019 with Textiles Committee as a professional body for on-site verification, testing of khadi products and Khadi mark tags and Labels management.” Textiles Committee, with its vast experience in successfully implementing similar government schemes like ‘Hand loom Mark’ and India Brand Handloom Scheme and possesses relevant technical expertise to take up the tasks of Khadi Mark scheme.The role of Textiles Committee in the implementation of Khadi Mark scheme ranges from periodic on site physical verification on the premises of production centre, drawing and testing of samples to ensure genuineness of Khadi, establishing Khadi mark labels and tags eligibility of Khadi Institution or person verified and management of Khadi mark labels tags /labels.
Textiles Committee, through its 29 offices across the country will implement the project and provide authorization, mark of genuine, originality. The committee is also working to explore opportunity to make the materials traceable through adopting technology. The operation will be executed across India through Khadi institutions and weavers.
To start with, Textile Committee will be creating close to 10 crore labels. As the initial works has been instituted, in next three months it is expected to see implementation. According to Ajit, the Government-run commercial organization is already working as a third-party organization for many government institutions including Railways is ready to serve private companies too.
Khadi mark signifies that the Khadi product is made of natural fibre i.e. cotton, wool and silk through the process of hand spinning and hand weaving. The key objectives of Khadi Mark are to
guarantee genuineness of Khadi and Khadi products produced in India – Hand Spun, Hand Woven and Natural Fibre, establish an unique identity for Khadi, improved customer awareness and increase popularity.
The Khadi Mark can be obtained by a certified Khadi institution or a person engaged in production and sale Khadi products. The Khadi mark Scheme requires periodic ‘On site verification of Khadi manufacturers to check the hand spinning, hand weaving of Khadi manufacturing and testing of Khadi products’ as per the Khadi mark Scheme.