UP may soon sign agreement with Raymond to supply indigenous khadi

The Uttar Pradesh government may soon sign an agreement with textile major Raymond to supply the indigenous khadi fabric to the firm.

The UP Khadi Board has provided fabric samples to Raymond, which is expected to procure 200,000 metres of UP khadi annually.

“We will start the supply of khadi to Raymond as soon as the samples are approved,” Principal Secretary of Khadi & Village Industries Board Navneet Sahgal, who is also the state trade facilitation commissioner, told Business Standard in Lucknow.

He said the khadi to be supplied to Raymond would be manufactured at the UP Khadi production centres situated at different places in the state. Besides, the UP Khadi Board is looking to supply uniforms to the students of UP government-run primary schools made from fabric blended with cotton and khadi. At present, nearly 18 million students are enrolled in the government-run schools, thereby requiring 36 million pairs of uniforms every year.

In February 2018, the state had signed an MoU with e-commerce giant Amazon for promoting UP’s Khadi on its online marketplace, apart from training entrepreneurs.

Now, the government is looking to firm up similar alliances with other e-commerce majors, including Alibaba and Flipkart. The state had earlier proposed to set up khadi parks. At the UP Investors Summit 2018, the state had signed MoUs to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore with Indian and foreign companies across the entire khadi value chain.