Team explores possibilities of a similar park at UP, visits Khadi store at Bistupur
Jamshedpur: A five-member team from the Uttar Pradesh Village and Khadi Industries Board visited Amda-based Khadi Park of Jharkhand State Khadi and Village Industries Board at Rajnagarin Seraikela-Kharswandistrict to explore
possibilities of a similar park in Uttar Pradesh. The team led by its CEO M P Maurya interacted with their counterparts and studied feasibility of the part.
The team comprising senior manager Harish Chandra Mishra, planning officer, Mahendra Pratap, of zonal officer of the Uttar Pradesh Village and Khadi Industries Board Abhay Tripathy and auditor Mohammad Qamar visited the Khadi Park along with its training and manufacturing units in Bistupur to gathering inputs on Khadi.
The Amda based Khadi Park of Jharkhand State Khadi and Village Industries Board at Rajnagarwas inaugurated by the Governor DroupadiMurmu in January this year.It is State�s first green khadi park at Amda, a hamlet in Seraikela-Kharsawan district.
” We are really excited to be here. In Uttar Pradesh, all our work has been outsourced to various societies but here in Jharkhand the work is being done by the board. We are really inspired to see that right from spinning to marketing, is being carried by the board. This process is very interesting. Therefore we have come to get an idea of how it works. We would like to soon build up the same in Uttar Pradesh,” said Maurya.
Spread over two acres land, the park has been built with a project cost of Rs 4 crore. It is the first solar-based khadi park. The board has installed 200 charkhas that will run on renewable energy in the first phase.
Apart from housing accommodation facilities, the park is equipped with a training centre for artisans for manufacturing products. There is a separate area for Gandhi Darshan, where statues of Mahatma Gandhi have been kept.
Kulwant Singh Seth, vice president of Jharkhand State Khadi and Village Industries Board said the importance of Khadi can be gauge out from the fact that this movement has succeeded to a large extent in preserving traditional arts and crafts. Second, it had been successful in providing self-employment to a large number of people in rural areas, particularly to women, who constituted the weakest sections of society.
He further added that Khadi has gone mod by adopting a blending technique in case of fabrics such as cotton, handloom fabrics, and silks.
An in-charge of the park, said 90 rural women had working on the charkhas. On an average, each woman produces around 100gm of silk threads a day. The solar spinning machines are new for them. As they gain experience, the production will increase.
�The board has a number of production units with both manual and hi-tech machines in rural and urban areas. But we wanted to come up with a one-stop facility, complete with all necessary infrastructure, for production of khadi,� said an official of the board.