Govt proposes scheme for artisans in khadi sector

New Delhi, Aug 24 (UNI) The Government has proposed the formulation of a new welfare scheme for weavers in the Khadi sector.

Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Mahabir Prasad, in a written reply, told the Rajya Sabha that the scheme namely, 'Workshed Scheme for Khadi Weavers and Artisans' was in the conceptual stage and drawn on the lines of one under implementation in the Ministry of Textiles for the benefit of handloom weavers.

The Ministry has been implementing a welfare scheme for the artisans of the khadi sector, including khadi weavers, namely, 'Khadi Karigar Janashree Bima Yojana' with effect from 2003-04.

In reply to another question on promotion of Swadeshi, the Minister said the Government continuously promoted 'Swadeshi' as one of the principal objectives in so far as khadi, village industry and coir products were concerned through its programmes and measures implemented by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) and Coir Board.

The steps taken in this direction by his Ministry include the implementation of schemes for development of Khadi and Polyvastra activities through KVIC and Coir Board in the country. For this purpose, Interest Subsidy Eligibility Certificate (ISEC) was issued in favour of implementing agencies for availing institutional finance to meet working capital requirement for the activities, at four per cent rate of interest and the difference between four per cent and actual lending rate is subsidised by KVIC. 10 per cent rebate is provided on retail sales of Khadi/Polyvastra products as normal rebate throughout the year and another 10 per cent special rebate for 108 days in the year.

Scheme of Product Development, Design Intervention and Packaging (PRODIP) has been launched in order to diversify and develop products under Khadi and Village Industries and also to improve the packaging of various KVI products, Mr Prasad said.

Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) was launched in October, 2005 for regeneration of traditional industries in 122 identified clusters in the khadi, village industries and coir sectors.

A Rural Industries Service Centre (RISC) scheme is in vogue for providing common facility services to KVI programmes on a cluster based manner, he added.

Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) is being implemented for establishing village industries projects with margin money assistance from KVIC and loan from public sector scheduled commercial banks.

Mahila Coir Yojana, Development of Production Infrastructure and Domestic/ Export Market Development Assistance are some of the programmes under implementation in the Coir sector through Coir Board.

UNI