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To open retail outlets in seven cities

Khadder foresees bright future for khadi

R Babymanoj - Bangalore

Braving rough weather and carving out a niche of consistent profitability in the perennially troubled hand-woven textile segment is a saga, the Kolkata-based khadi cloth maker Tropical Clothing Company (TCC) that owns ‘Khadder’ brand of retail outlets, is all set to repeat. ‘Khadder’ collects purely hand-woven fabric from traditional weavers from all over the country, makes readymade garments and sells these through its nationwide outlets. ‘Khadder’ is now planning seven more exclusive retail outlets in seven major cities of the country, namely, Delhi, Jaipur, Noida, Cochin, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Chennai. It already has an exclusive retail outlet in Bangalore in the Forum Mall.

Speaking to Express Textile, Arup Dutta, co-founder and CEO and Rahul Upadhyay, co-founder and COO of the company said, “The company specialises in hand-woven cloths, providing succour to the traditional weavers of Faziabad, Andhra, Kolkata and Southern regions of the country.” Having started the stint with khadi in early childhood, Rahul Upadhyay reminisces, “I am born and brought up in ‘khadi’. My grandfather set up a khadi business 40 years ago, in Faziabad district. He organised a group of weavers, taught them various techniques and aided them to stand on their own feet. Then we moved to Andhra Pradesh; there also we repeated our success. Finally we set up our headquarters in Kolkata”.

The company makes use of pure muslin cotton, a specialty of Andhra Pradesh in particular, on a big scale. “Andhra is one of the very few places in India that produces pure handspun, hand-woven khadi. Even after the onset of superior technology, hand weaving and spinning survive there, that too profitably”, they say. “Women in villages there still do the spinning and dyeing by hand, the traditional way. That is an important aspect we highlight through our brands”, the co-founders state.

They feel the market in India is still better than the one abroad and hence cherish no plans for exporting their products at this point in time. Arup Dutta is of the view that, non-profitable nature of co-operative sector in khadi can be done away with to a large extent by shedding the deep-rooted ‘charity’ mindset. “There is a difference between ‘profit motive’ and ‘charity’. Rather than giving food to a guy for one time, it is infinitely better to help him find a livelihood, which is our motto”, claims Dutta.

In the current industry environment, the weaver and the people associated with khadi are not benefited in the usual conditions prevailing in the country on account of middlemen. With real profit motive, a turnaround is very much possible in the co-operative sector.

‘Khadder’ collects fabrics from 22 societies spread in the length and breadth of the country for making and subsequently marketing their garments. The garments are made in Kolkata. From there, the finished garments are distributed through the retail stores. The company has an annual turnover of Rs 1.8 crore.

“We are targeting to become a Rs 5 crore company next year and in six years we would become a Rs 10 crore company”, say the ambitious youngsters. The company sold 43,000 units last year. It expects to double the figure in the coming year. Looking at the industrial environment prevailing in the country, while Arup sees opportunity in adversity, Rahul feels poor infrastructure in the villages is a big problem.

Anticipating a bright future for the khadi segment, they say, “There are 7,000 KVICs in the country. Their overall turnover is around Rs 8000 crore as per the 2002 figures. We expect a fifteen per cent growth to Rs 12,000 crore”. Advocating the elimination of middlemen, Arup and Rahul feel that at least Rs 5000 crore could then reach the weavers directly.

Allaying misunderstandings about khadi, they say normal wash is sufficient for khadi cloth and there was no need for special care. Contrary to popular belief, no additional cost was involved in the upkeep of the cloth. Instead, khadi yarn was such that stone wash made the yarn coarser. Tensile fibre was increasingly used for khadi cloth manufacturing, which added durability, sheen and lustre to the fabric, they said.

The co-founders of Khadder observe that handloom is popular in Rajasthan, Manipur, West Bengal, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala; 70 per cent of all the khadi cloth are contributed by these states. Karnataka and Kashmir also are contributors to the industry.

In TCC facility, for one metre of producing the cloth, three people are involved, say Anup and Rahul. Majority of the users of khadi are women; The women:men ratio is now 80:20. However it is likely to reach 65:35 after passing through a ratio of 70:30, they feel.