Assam employees to get khadi cloth; wearing once a month must soon

Meanwhile, Kamala Kanta Kalita, chairman of AKVIB said the state government would have to procure about 50 per cent of the total khadi material required to provide the employees in the current year. “We will have to procure about 50 per cent of the khadi cloth from other states this year. But we have plans to produce the entire requirement in Assam within the next two to three years,” Kalita said.

The Board, Kalita said, had already initiated a process to organise women’s groups to weave khadi material that the government would require on a big scale for providing dress materials to its employees every year. “We are setting up women’s groups who would be provided yarn for producing khadi fabric that the government would require,” Kalita said. The Assam Khadi & Village Industries Board had in the current year created a record of sorts by earning Rs 18 lakh from selling national flags, Kalita informed. “During 2016, the Board sold national flags worth Rs 16 lakh, but then the fabric was brought from other states and KVIC. This year however the entire lot of flags were made of khadi fabric woven in Assam,” he said.

The BJP government in Assam had in May this year experimented with a suggestion that government employees wear traditional dresses to their workplace every first and third Saturday of the month. Though a section of employees did comply with it for a few weeks, but with no official order making it mandatory, it has become become a forgotten chapter now.