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Assessment of AI model to identify handmade traditional Khadi for environmental sustainability
Summary
Researchers developed an AI-powered smartphone tool that can quickly verify if fabric is genuine handmade Khadi, replacing the slow, invasive lab testing (burning, chemicals) currently used to catch fakes. This matters because real Khadi is a natural, eco-friendly alternative to synthetic fabrics—which shed microplastics that pollute water and can end up in our bodies—so making it easier to spot authentic Khadi helps support cleaner textile choices and reduce microplastic pollution.
Khadi is “any cloth woven on handlooms in India from cotton, silk or woollen yarn hand-spun in India or from a mixture of any two or all of such yarns”. Based on the material or fibre used in yarn, there are three varieties of Khadi, namely, Cotton Khadi, Woollen Khadi and Silk Khadi, which contributed 74.25%, 15.41% and 10.34%, respectively, to the total quantity (1643.32 lakh square metres) of Khadi production valued at Rs. 250.33 crore during 2022-23. It is evident that Cotton Khadi dominates the entire Khadi sector. Khadi is comparatively more environmentally sustainable than most of the other natural or synthetic fabrics. Synthetic fibres, primarily used in the textile industry, are a significant contributor to water pollution among various types of microplastics. Hence, the promotion of Khadi is the promotion of a clean environment (air and water). Being a labour-intensive industry, Khadi is also a solution to the major problem of unemployment in the world’s most populated country, India. In fact, the Khadi industry meets the requirements of sustainable development goals set by the United Nations, especially with respect to ‘Climate Action’, ‘Water and Sanitation’, ‘Excellent Health and Well-Being', and ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’. However, the sale of spurious Khadi has been a major issue prevailing ever since the introduction of Khadi as a livery of freedom by Gandhi Ji. The present method of testing the authenticity of Khadi is a completely manual, invasive, and time-consuming process involving physical visits to production centres and laboratory tests employing burn, chemical, and microscopic tests. We present a novel method using artificial intelligence to identify genuine Khadi with the help of a macro imaging device for smartphones and an Android app.