KVIC issues 2,172 notices to businesses selling unauthorised Khadi

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Mar 22, 2022

The Khadi and Village Industries Commission announced that it has issued 2,172 notices to businesses across India for retailing products with unauthorised Khadi trademarks until January this year. 

“Up to January 2022, KVIC had issued 2,172 notices to entities engaged in the unauthorised sale of products in the name of Khadi,” said Minister of State for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma in written reply to the Rajya Sabha, the Press Trust of India reported. 
 
Close to 500 businesses and organisations have so far apologised for misusing the trademark and have agreed to remove it from their products and e-commerce sites, according to KVIC. The organisation has taken steps to verify Khadi products including appointing seven trade mark consultants.

KVIC has also undertaken the task of removing online links to unauthorised Khadi goods. “So far, KVIC [has] already removed 2,487 links from Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, WhatsApp, YouTube etc,” wrote Verma. 
 
KVIC is part of the Ministry for MSMEs and works to promote handloom textiles with the aim of preserving Indian textile traditions and creating employment opportunities in the sector.

The organisation has filed nine lawsuits to date against businesses for allegedly infringing its Khadi trademark including against fashion and lifestyle brand FabIndia.

KVIC filed its case against FabIndia in the Bombay High Court for allegedly misnaming products as Khadi when they were not actually handloom.