About Us

The handloom sector is a symbol of our country’s rich and varied cultural heritage, and is an important source of livelihood in rural and semi-rural parts of our country. It is also a sector that directly addresses women’s empowerment with over 70% of all weavers and allied workers being female. Rooted in nature, it has eco-friendly production processes with minimal requirement of capital and power, and provides flexibility to innovate to meet changes in fashion trends and fast-changing customer preferences.

Khadi is a symbol of self-reliance, patriotism, and reminds us of the National Movement and of Mahatma Gandhi who made this fabric famous and an icon of the Indian freedom struggle. With a vision to promote Khadi and Handloom as well as to empower women in rural India, a strategic initiative was taken by NCL-IIT (BHU) Incubation Centre to establish its 1st Khadi and Handloom Centre as Satellite Centre of NIIC at Semuar village on 2nd October, 2019. Since its establishment, continuous efforts are being made to providing Khadi and Handloom Training to women belonging to rural areas of Singrauli region along with capacity enhancement of this Centre.

This Centre is not only promoting khadi and handloom in Singrauli region, but it is also ensuring women empowerment and new job opportunities in Singrauli region under “Aatamnirbhar Bharat”. Efforts are being made to form SHGs of the women linked with this Centre and connect them to the market through different platforms like e-commerce platforms, GeM etc. This Centre is also working as the platform for those start-ups of NIIC which deals with Khadi, handloom or in the field of textile/handcrafts work. The Centre has a vision and a dedicated Ahilyabai team under the guidance of Prof. Rajnesh Tyagi, Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT (BHU), Varanasi to realize the dream of Mahatma Gandhi for ensuring use of Khadi in every home of the country by focusing on following key areas:

• Imparting “Khadi and Handloom” training to Women of rural areas of the country.
• Integrating innovative practices in the Handloom Centres for enhancing production, productivity, quality and safety.
• Ensuring genuineness and to set up standards of quality.
• Taking strategic initiatives on time to time basis to ensure that women of the region not only become able to fulfil their needs in all aspects, but they also inspire others to become Aatamnirbhar. For this purpose, parallel efforts are being made to promote organic farming, mushroom cultivation etc. by the women.
• Taking strategic initiatives to ensure sustainability of these Centres in today’s competitive market and for this reason, the Centre has adopted the concept of cellular layout production system to meet the dynamic demand both in terms of varieties and volume of products.
• Promoting women education as well as expansion of these Centres across India under one umbrella-“Ahilyabai”.
• Ensuring use of e-commerce platforms as well as collaboration with the organizations in the field of Khadi and Handloom sector for business sustainability.