Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), the nodal agency for implementing the Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), has said it has created over 3,000 additional sustainable jobs for women in the past two years.
It said these jobs were created by providing charkhas to women. They were in addition to 4.69 lakh jobs under the PMEGP in backward and unattended areas across the country.
KVIC said in a release that sustainable employment has been created in Jayapur, Sewapuri and Kankariya villages of PM's constituency in Varanasi.
It said 25 new model charkha (spinning wheels) and five looms were given to Krishak Vikas Gramodyog Sansthan in Jayapur to make rural populations self-reliant.
KVIC has also established two training centres at Jayapur and Kakrahiya and provided 25 solar charkhas and five solar looms each in these villages to impart training.
It said that 50 local women were given training to use these charkhas.
"Each of these trained women has also been provide a loan of Rs 80,000, under PMEGP in which 35 per cent subsidy has been provided by the KVIC to start their own venture of spinning. Working from their homes, these women are sure to earn at least Rs 200 per day," KVIC said.
A unit of "Lijjat papad" has also been established in the Sewapuri campus, in which as many as 176 local women have got direct employment and 10 indirect employment, it said.
In April, the KVIC had kicked off a new training-cum- production centre at Silimkhowa in the Kaziranga National Park area.
The commission gave 25 charkhas, five looms and other accessories to the village artisans. This unit has provided direct job opportunities to nearly 50 rural families of this area.
The Khadi Commission also said that it has revived its defunct Multi-Disciplinary Training Centre in Pampore in Jammu and Kashmir and provided 25 charkhas to make the women in the valley self-reliant.
Similarly, in a bid to generate employment, KVIC had given 45 charkhas to tribal women at Omkareshwar in Narmada Valley to start Khadi activities in Madhya Pradesh.
KVIC chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena said it is a new beginning in Narmada Valley and it would provide looms and more charkhas to create more employment in remote areas.
"Our priorities have always been to create maximum number of jobs for the womenfolk of India. Right now, the new centre is equipped with 45 charkhas and 60 trained artisans, but we have already initiated to send 55 more charkhas there, which will incorporate more than 200 women there with proper jobs," he said.
PMEGP was implemented in 2008 by merging two schemes -- Prime Ministers Rojgar Yojana (PMRY) and Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) -- with KVIC as the nodal agency.