NEW DELHI: Minister of State for MSME Giriraj Singh on Friday said that the government is in the process of creating a model whereby four lakh jobs will be generated annually in 800 villages across the country through clusters.
“We have decided to create a model under which 400 villages in first phase and 400 villages in the second phase will generate four lakh jobs every year,” Singh said on the sidelines of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) Board meeting, where he also launched the Khadi store locator app.
Singh said new employment opportunityies will emerge when Khadi and village industry combines together. Completion and implementation of the new model is not revealed yet. According to MSME’s official statement, the Khadi and village industries’ products are manufactured by about seven lakh privately owned household units, which are funded through schemes like the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP).
However, as per a report published last month, which cited official figures released by the MSME ministry to the Lok Sabha, employment in the Khadi sector fell from 11.6 lakh to 4.6 lakh between 2015-16 and 2016-17. KVIC had claimed that the job loss figures are incorrect as the figures on people leaving the sector were not being updated till 2015, while new jobs were being created.
Accepting that introduction of new model charkhas did cause some job loss, it said that its decision in January 2018 to pay the subsidy directly to artisans in their Aadhaar-seeded account resulted in flushing out ‘ghost’ artisans. In the same time period, the official data showed the production of Khadi rose by 31.6 per cent and sales grew by 33 per cent.