Khadi items made in Uttar Pradesh are now available on e-commerce portal Amazon India, after the state government on Tuesday signed an MoU in this regard with the company, an official said.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Avinash Krishna Singh, the Chief Executive Officer of the UP Khadi Vikas Board, and Director and General Manager – Seller Services, Amazon India, Gopal Pillai in the state capital.
Briefing the media on the outreach to a ‘waiting, willing global market’, Navneet Sehgal, Principal Secretary – UP Khadi and Village Industries, said that Khadi products from the state would be available on Amazon under the brand name of ‘UP Khadi’.
By signing the MoU, Uttar Pradesh becomes the first state in the country to have entered into an agreement with Amazon to market and sell Khadi products.
With the MoU, seven Khadi-producing institutions in the state have on-boarded the platform and 40 others are in the pipeline and currently in the process of hitching onto the site, officials said.
Minister for Khadi and Village Industries Satyadev Pachauri told reporters that the state government was committed to making Khadi grow exponentially, as was the dream of Mahatma Gandhi and also envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Through the agreement, he added, the state government had made a successful foray into the larger domestic and global market.
“We have also given solar charkhas the industry status and this will enable people spinning Khadi to produce more and earn more while also conserving energy,” he added.
Pillai in his address said that Amazon started with 100 elders in 2013 in India and now had three lakh-plus sellers and still counting.
The signing of the MoU, he said, was to empower, educate and enable the small-time artisans to uplift their living as well as to provide them a platform to sell their products to the larger global market through the portal.
