The Government continuously promotes ‘Swadeshi’ as one of the principal objectives in so far as khadi, village industry and coir products are concerned through its programmes and measures implemented by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) and Coir Board.
The steps taken in this direction by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises include the implementation of the following schemes through KVIC and Coir Board, in the country:
(i) Schemes for development of Khadi and Polyvastra activities: For this purpose, Interest Subsidy Eligibility Certificate (ISEC) is issued in favour of implementing agencies for availing institutional finance to meet working capital requirement of khadi and polyvastra activities, at 4% rate of interest and the difference between 4% and actual lending rate is subsidized by KVIC.
10% Rebate is provided on retail sales of Khadi/Polyvasta products as normal rebate throughout the year and another 10% special rebate for 108 days in the year.
(ii) Scheme of Product Development, Design Intervention and Packaging (PRODIP) has been launched in order to diversify and develop products under Khadi & Village Industries and also to improve the packaging of the various KVI products.
(iii) Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) has been launched in October, 2005 for regeneration of traditional industries in 122 identified clusters in khadi, village industries and coir sectors.
(iv) A Rural Industries Service Centre (RISC) scheme is in vogue for providing common facility services to KVI programmes on a cluster based manner.
(v) Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) is being implemented for establishing village industries projects with margin money assistance from KVIC and loan from public sector scheduled commercial banks.
(vi) Mahila Coir Yojana, Development of Production Infrastructure and Domestic/ Export Market Development Assistance are some of the programmes under implementation in Coir sector through Coir Board.
(vii) Development of Production Infrastructure Scheme for coir production through supply of equipment and machinery at subsidised rates.
(viii) Research and Development Schemes.
(ix) Financial assistance for participation in national and international exhibitions.
This information was given by the Minister of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, Shri Mahabir Prasad in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.
