Manufacturers and traders are working around the clock to meet the 'unprecedented' increase in demand for the Indian tricolour, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Har Ghar Tiranga campaign' launched on July 22 to encourage people to hoist or display the national flag in their homes for three days — between August 13 and August 15. The programme is part of the government's 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' project, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi started in March 2021 to commemorate 75 years of Indian independence.
"Textile traders in Surat, the country's largest textile market, have received orders for over 5 crore national flags, and manufacturing factories are working around the clock to provide flags on time." People have begun creating our national flags in other states such as Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and others where there are textile markets," said Confederation of All India Traders’ (CAIT) National President BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal in a joint statement. According to CAIT, the most popular sizes are 96, 1812, 1624, 2030, and 5335. The government announced last week that, in order to assure the supply of flags across India, all post offices will begin selling flags on August 1, 2022, with state governments following suit.
The government also stated that it has partnered with several e-commerce companies and self-help groups to streamline the supply of the flag. The tricolour is also included on the GeM webpage. The increase in demand for flags is also tied to the government's decision to incorporate the tricolour campaign into firms' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The demand for flags used to peak around Republic Day (January 26), Independence Day (August 15), and Gandhi Jayanti (October 2), but due to Covid, the national celebrations did not take place on a significant scale in the last two years, thus the unused stock was made available this year, according to CAIT. However, demand increased as a result of the advertising.