Team News Riveting
Leading e-commerce portals including Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and others would not provide a platform to the vendors selling products in the brand name “Khadi”.
The development comes after Khadi and Village Industry Commission (KVIC) served legal notices to over 1000 firms using the brand name “Khadi India” to sell their products and thus causing damage to its reputation and the loss of work to Khadi artisans.
Khadi and Village Industries Commission’s (KVIC) firmness has forced e-commerce portals like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and others to remove over 160 web links selling products in the brand name of “Khadi”.
The commission had noticed e-commerce portals were selling products like Khadi masks, herbals soaps, shampoos, cosmetics, herbal mehandi, jackets, kurta and many such products through different sellers using the brand name “Khadi”.
KVIC’s firm action forced Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal to remove 160 fake khadi products Online. Khadi Global has also discontinued using its website and also removed its social media pages on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and has sought 10-day time to remove all such contents and products using the brand name “Khadi”.
The action has also resulted in shutting down a number of stores across the country that was selling fake Khadi products.
KVIC Chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena said the brand name “Khadi” was creating a false impression among online buyers that these commodities were genuine “Khadi” products. This trademark violation has a direct bearing on the livelihood of artisans who are making genuine handcrafted products,” he added.
A majority of the products that have been removed were being sold by one Ayush E-Traders. This firm has confirmed to KVIC that it has removed 140 links for various products that were being sold as “Vagad’s Khadi Products”.
The officials said there had been a steep rise in violation of the Khadi trademark as the popularity of Khadi grew manifold in recent years after the Prime Minister’s appeal to buy Khadi products. Exploiting this opportunity, a number of online sellers began selling random products in the name of Khadi.
KVIC has launched its e-portal selling a range of 300 products online.
