Amid reports of massive job losses in the time of global downturn, the government sees over 1 crore jobs being created in rural areas this financial year with khadi units contributing 10 lakh jobs.
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Enterprises is also bullish on sales of products from rural industries. Merchandise sales from village industries is expected to increase by 10 per cent to Rs 22,344 crore in the fiscal, says the annual report of Ministry of Micro, Small and Enterprises for 2008-09.
Sales from khadi industries are estimated to increase to Rs 910 crore in 2009-10 from Rs 855 crore in the last fiscal.
"The total cumulative employment in the Khadi and Village Industry sector is estimated to have increased to 1.02 crore by the end of March 2009 as against 99.21 lakh by the end March 2008," the report said.
The MSME sector is estimated to employ about 42 million people in over 13 million units throughout the country. The sector accounts about 45 per cent of the manufacturing output and 40 per cent of the total exports of the country.
