New Delhi, July 11: When some of the country's brightest receive their degrees from their premier engineering institute next month, their anointment will draw on a centuries-old, home-grown technology.

These IIT Bombay graduates will have a khadi uttariya (scarf) draped round their neck in keeping with a call Prime Minister Narendra Modi had issued to all higher-education institutions sometime ago.

Institute sources said the IIT had asked the Khadi and Village Industries Commission to supply 3,500 uttariyas made of "honeycomb towel cotton khadi" for its August 13 convocation.

Of these, 1,500 will be in blue and will be given to MTech graduates. The order includes 1,250 green uttariyas for BTech graduates and 350 red scarves for research degree holders. There will be 200 in saffron, 100 in maroon and 100 in white for teachers and other staff.

Sources said the students would be in traditional Indian clothes such as kurta-pyjamasand saris while the senate members will wear the academic robe.

"The students wear kurta-pyjamasand saris at every convocation. The uttariya is nothing new, either, except that the material will be khadi this time," a senior institute official said.

IIT Bombay director Devang Khakhar pleaded ignorance, saying: "I have no knowledge about the khadi uttariyas."

Modi had in a speech suggested that the dresses worn at all convocations be made of handloom fabrics, prompting a prod from the University Grants Commission to all the universities last year.

Khadi Commission chairman Vinay Kumar Saxena said the uttariyas would be six feet long and carry the IIT Bombay monogram. "They will be customised for IIT Bombay. Each will cost Rs 141," he said.

Gujarat University had four months ago placed a similar order with the Khadi Commission for its convocations.

"The demand for khadi is surging. (Power utility) NTPC placed a Rs 5.34-crore order last week for 23,000 khadi-and-silk jackets for its employees," Saxena said.

Mahatma Gandhi had made khadi fashionable nationally in 1918 by asking Indians to junk western clothes and adopt the indigenous fabric to help the poor rural weavers. His call turned the charkha (spinning wheel) into a symbol of the freedom movement.

The Khadi Commission has asked the government to advise its employees to wear khadi at least once a week. In June, the petroleum ministry asked all the PSUs under its administrative control to procure khadi uniforms for their workers.

Saxena hoped the higher education regulator's circular and the example of IIT Bombay would inspire other institutions.

Last month, the Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, an organisation seeking education reform and headed by Sangh ideologue Dinanath Batra, had urged the universities, IITs and IIMs to shun the colonial robes and caps at graduation ceremonies. Instead, the students and the dignitaries should wear Indian dress, preferably khadi, it said.