New Delhi: Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) on Friday said that it has received a supply order of 1.91 lakh Khadi cotton durries worth Rs 10 crore for paramilitary forces. The order has been received from Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) which is the nodal agency for procuring provisions on behalf of all paramilitary forces in the country. It follows an agreement signed between KVIC and ITBP for supplying durries on January 6, this year.
"The development comes in wake of the 'Swadeshi Push' in Central Armed Police Forces by the Home Minister who ordered the use of Swadeshi products only in the forces," KVIC added.
Out of the 1.91 lakh durries, 51,000 will be supplied to ITBP, 59,500 to Border Security Forces (BSF); 42,700 to Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and 37,700 to Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). The supply order will be completed by November this year. The cotton durries prepared by KVIC have been certified by the Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA), a unit of the Ministry of Textile.
As per the specifications, KVIC will provide blue-colour durries of 1.98-meter length and 1.07-meter width. The cotton durries will be produced by Khadi institutions of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab. An estimated 1.75 lakh man-days of additional work for the Khadi artisans will be created by this purchase order alone. This is for the first time KVIC is supplying Durries to the paramilitary forces.
KVIC Chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena said that this order from ITBP is a testimony of Khadi's popularity among the forces owing to its high-quality standards. "KVIC is regularly supplying large quantity kacchi ghani mustard oil to the forces," he added.
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