The Role of KVIC in Business

Prior to independence, Mahatma Gandhi guided the growth of Khadi and Village Industries, which was wholly non-governmental. Following independence, the Indian government was tasked with integrating the growth of Khadi and Village Industries into the general structure of the Five-Year Plans. As a result, the Indian government established the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament. This organisation was founded in 1956 and is dedicated to promoting and growing Khadi and Village Industries in order to boost the rural economy. The Khadi and Village Industries programme is primarily responsible for providing job possibilities to rural craftsmen, particularly those from the lower socioeconomic strata of society. Since agriculture has lost its potential to create more job possibilities for rural regions’ constantly rising workforce, the importance of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has grown in order to provide rural people with an alternative and appropriate source of income.

The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) is a statutory body established by the Government of India in April 1957 (according to an RTI) under the ‘Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act of 1956.’ With regard to khadi and village industries in India, it is an apex organisation under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises that aims to “plan, promote, grease, organise, and help in the establishment and development of khadi and village industries in rural areas in collaboration with other agencies engaged in rural development wherever necessary.”

In April 1957, it took over the operations of the defunct All India Khadi and Village Industries Board. The company’s headquarters are in Mumbai, with regional offices in Delhi, Bhopal, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Guwahati.

In addition to the zonal offices, there are 29 additional offices around the country that oversee the execution of various initiatives in accordance with the commission’s goals.

The word Khadi comes from Mahatma Gandhi’s Swadeshi Movement, which promoted the use of hand-woven and home-spun fabrics in 1920. It was a sort of protest against British goods, and the method’s simplicity was astonishing. Khadi is a hand-woven textile manufactured with the charkha, a typical instrument in rural India. It also refers to any cloth woven on handlooms in India from handspun cotton, silk, or woollen yarn, or a combination of any two or all of these yarns.

KVIC FULL FORM

In collaboration with other agencies involved in rural development, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) was established as an apex body under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium-sized businesses to assist in the planning, promotion, facilitation, organisation, and growth of Khadi and Village Industries in rural India.

Functions of KVIC

• Creating a raw material reserve and putting it into action so that it may be distributed to producers
• Establishment of shared service facilities for the processing of raw materials, including semi-finished items
• Khadi and Village Industries items, as well as handicrafts, are being promoted for sale and marketing.
• Promoting research into production processes and equipment for the village industries sector
• Providing financial support to people and organisations for the development and operation of the Khadi and Village industries

Objectives of KVIC

• To promote Khadi in rural areas
• To provide employment
• To produce saleable articles
• To create self-reliance amongst the poor
• Developing a strong rural community

DIGITAL KVIC

The Directorate of IT has established “Digital KVIC,” to which all Directorates/Field Offices have been given access by assigning user names and passwords to all pertinent Officers. KVIC (Khadi and Village Industries Commission) has gone digital, with most of its activities being conducted online, in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a digital India. To begin with, The Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Program (PMEGP) was the first programme to be digitised. Since July 1, 2016, the program’s nodal agency KVIC has received 404354 online applications.

According to KVIC Chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena, digitization also improved transparency and hastened the payment of margin money subsidies under the PMEGP scheme.

In addition to the digitization steps implemented by KVIC, Saxena stated that they have also introduced online application submission by potential beneficiaries, as well as direct benefit transfer payment of margin money subsidy straight into the beneficiary account. Not only can applicants now follow the status of their applications at any time due to the digitization of the process, but it has also eliminated even the tiniest opportunity for intermediaries. Similarly, the KVIC had also digitized the whole payment procedure of Market Promotion and Development Assistance (MPDA) for assisting execution of Khadi projects.

CONCLUSION

The Khadi and Village Industries Commission, which is an apex organisation at the national level, and the State Khadi and Village Industries Boards, which operate in various states and union territories, collaborate to execute the Khadi and Village Industries Program in our country. Though state Khadi and Village Industries Boards have main responsibility for implementing village industries programmes, they require leadership and guidance from both the federal and state governments to ensure the sector’s effective growth. That is why the Indian government decided to establish the Khadi and Village Industries Commission as a national level organisation (KVIC).