Handmade Khadi items now to be sold through CAPF canteens

Shah also announced that the Khadi and Village Industries Corporation made a turnover of Rs 1.15L cr in 2021-22

Handmade Khadi products will now be sold through canteens of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) across the country, Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah announced on Monday while launching the khadi products sale at 107 such canteens.

“The sale of Khadi products has begun in 107 paramilitary canteens; very soon Khadi products will be made available in all paramilitary canteens across the country,” Shah said at the launch event at Tamulpur in Assam’s Baksa district (Bodoland area).

According to the Home Minister, the sale of the Khadi products (or production and sale of Khadi products) will create more employment for rural people including the young boys who gave up insurgency and have joined mainstream Bodoland since 2020.

Shah also announced that the Khadi and Village Industries Corporation (KVIC) made a “historic” turnover of Rs 1.15 lakh crore in 2021-22, registering a massive growth of nearly 250 per cent.

In a bid to push Centre’s Swadeshi scheme, the Home Minister earlier made it mandatory for all CAPF canteens to sell maximum “Swadeshi” products through KVIC. “To begin with, 32 products including the National Flag, cotton towels, honey, kacchi ghani (DH style guide?) mustard oil, agarbatti (incense sticks), daliya (broken wheat), papad (poppadom), pickles, (and) amla products will be supplied in the canteens located in Delhi-NCR, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and other states,” Shah said.

The Home Minister, who is touring Assam, visited on Monday morning a border outpost at Mankachar, near the Indo-Bangladesh border and reviewed the border protection security arrangement. He also laid the foundation stone for Border Security Force’s Central Workshop and Stores at Tamulpur.

On Tuesday Shah will address a public rally in Guwahati to mark one-year completion of Himanta Biswa Sarma-led government in Assam.