Nav-Trinjan: Faridkot women weave desi cotton khadi, win PM's praise

Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the 139th episode of his monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat on Sunday, October 25, 2026, by praising Nav-Trinjan, a handloom project in Punjab's Faridkot district where rural women spin and weave cloth from cotton grown by natural farmers. The project is run by the Kheti Virasat Mission, a non-profit group based in Jaito (also spelt Jaitu). He spent close to three minutes on it and named four women weavers, Ramandeep Kaur, Rajni Kaur, Rekha Rani and Sneha Devi, saying traditional weaving had given them work of their own.

Nav-Trinjan is a small project, but it puts women at every step of a chain that runs from the seed to the finished cloth, rather than only at the loom. Umendra Dutt has described the idea in those terms: farmers in the network grow desi cotton without chemicals, the fibre is spun by hand, and women weave it into finished fabric. That model keeps more of the value of each metre of cloth in the village, and it gives women who had no paid work, or only casual labour, a skill they can keep.

The name itself is a link to the past. In rural Punjab, a trinjan was a gathering where women sat together to spin cotton, sing and share stories. Those gatherings faded as mill cloth replaced home spinning and lifestyles changed. The project borrows the name to suggest that the old social side of spinning and weaving can return as a source of income, not only as a memory.

The project's range shows where it fits in today's market for handmade and sustainable clothing. Reports on its exhibitions list handspun yarn, handwoven khadi, traditional khes (thick cotton sheets), shawls, towels, dupattas, stoles and naturally coloured cotton, which reduces the need for chemical dyes. KVM has also said the project holds the Craftmark label, which certifies that a product is handmade. In June, KVM held a nine-day Nav-Trinjan organic cotton and khadi exhibition and sale in Jaito.

The weaving school is where the skill is passed on. Two master artisans, Shinder Kaur and Gurmeet Kaur, who had little formal schooling but decades of experience at the loom, teach young people from weaving families. Some of the women trained there are now earning from their work, according to KVM.

Short-term: National attention on a radio programme with a wide audience is likely to bring the project new buyers, visitors and requests for training. The four women named on air also gain recognition for skills that are often invisible in the textile trade.

Long-term: If demand grows, the main limit is skill. With about 30 women trained in two years, the pace of the weaving school will decide how quickly the project can scale, and whether the farm-to-fabric chain can support more farmers growing desi cotton.

Who is affected: Rural women in Faridkot looking for skilled work, natural farmers who grow desi cotton, handloom buyers and designers looking for traceable fabric, and others trying to build similar women-led craft groups.

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