India’s finance ministry has made it mandatory for all government departments to buy at least 20 per cent of their textiles requirement from the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), handloom clusters and registered weavers to boost the khadi industry. The ministry has amended Rule 153 of General Financial Rules (GFR) 2017 to implement this change.

Till now, the government had reserved all items of hand spun and hand-woven textiles (khadi goods) for exclusive purchase from KVIC.

According to the amended rule, "of all items of textiles required by the central government departments, it shall be mandatory to make procurement of at least 20 per cent, from amongst items of handloom origin, for exclusive purchase from KVIC and/ or handloom clusters".

Handloom clusters include co-operative societies, self help group federations, joint liability group, producer companies, corporations including weavers having 'pehchan cards', said a recent circular from the Department of Expenditure Procurement Policy Division (PPD) under the ministry.

In the last budget, the allocation for khadi, village and coir industries was raised to ₹1,525.94 crore for the next fiscal.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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