Undyed 'coloured cotton' clothes make a splash

Even as there is an outcry over the WTO allegedly killing the village industries, the khadi garments produced at Uppin Betageri in Dharwad district have been gaining in popularity. The speciality of the khadi cloth is that the cotton is coloured and hence doesn't need to be dyed.

The kurtas, pyjamas, 'Nehru' shirts in a wide range of attractive colours and latest designs are in great demand within and outside the country.

The Uppina Betageri Khadi Weavers' Co-operative Society) has already produced 10,000m of cloth using the colour cotton grown at Uppina Betageri using organic farming on a contract basis.

Society secretary Abdul Gafar Dodawad said that the garment was most suitable in summer as it kept the body cool. The cloth is a little expensive but the price has not deterred people from going in for the product.

The price of the shirts are normally in the range of Rs 800-1000 each. The society has organised exhibition-cum-sale at Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and plans to reach out to other metros soon.

The cotton has come as a boon to the water-starved, fertiliser-starved farmers in the drought-stricken Uppin Betageri.

Thanks to cotton scientist B M Khadi of University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad, who developed 'Sahana' a pest-tolerant variety and also pioneered the coloured cotton, the farmers are heaving a sigh of relief as they foresee a bright future for the clothes made of the coloured cotton.

The cotton is resistant to the green bollworm too. Farmers can replicate the seeds and it gives a yield of 5 quintals per acre under irrigated conditions or 2 quintals per acre at the very least.

Karnataka minister for industries P G R Sindhia who visited the exhibition in Bangalore recently was impressed by the quality of the coloured cotton khadi clothes and promised all help from the government.