INDIA: Air India Crew Members To Wear Khadi Uniform In VVIP Flights

In a welcome initiative Air India has decided to use Khadi costumes for its serving crew-members in flights meant for VVIPs by placing an order of 150 sarees, 25 Jodhuri bandgala suits, 40 pairs of trousers and 40 jackets to Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). The same should be adopted for all Air India flights rather than just VVIPs flights.

Air India has also ordered for 25000 kits for its Business Class and First Class passengers with each kit including items like hand sanitizer, khadi moisturizer, lotion, khadi lemongrass, khadi handmade soap, khadi lip balm, khadi rose face wash, essential oils etc all to be supplied by Khadi Gramodyog Bhawan, a flagship showroom of KVIC by January 31, 2017 generating 60000 man-hours.

Khadi having become an important fashion-item too now-a-days should be promoted likewise by other public-sector-undertakings and government departments also rather mandatorily. Even private sector hotels and airlines should be motivated to use khadi products.

Union government has also been taking several steps to encourage handloom sector in the country for which the government also imposes handloom-cess on excise-duty chargeable from mill made cloth.

But real encouragement to handloom-sector can be best given by making it compulsory for every licensed textile mill to set up a handloom unit in the mill compound by making it compulsory to bring some minimum percentage of cloth woven on handloom as outcome of total production of the textile mill. System will give automatic employment to handloom weavers in the recognised corporate sector.

Clothes woven on handloom has some natural beauty which cannot be created by mill-produced clothes. With Indian garment export facing stiff competition from countries like China and Pakistan, encouraging handloom sector in this manner can bring back glory to garment export industry in India.