A VILLAGE FAMOUS FOR POTTERY

KORAPUT: “This is the only source of our living”, says Padlam Kumbhar (45), a resident of Limca village. The village Limca is only 12 kms from away from Koraput district headquarter and is only 2kms away from the NH 43 which connects Raipur and Visakhapatnam. The village is well connected with an all-weather road. The village is famous for its pottery work in the whole district of Koraput.

Most of the villagers of this village collect their livelihood by doing pottery work. They are very artistic and skilled in their work. The villagers are doing this pottery work hereditarily. They are not only giving some artistic touch to the pottery works but also are doing certain terracotta works.

Limka : Potters busy (Photo - Debabrata)

Now pottery has become a cottage industry in the village. The entire Kumbhar community of that village are engaged in the pottery work. They are also engaging all their family members in that work. They are not very much interested to send their children to school. Rather they are encouraging their children to help them in the pottery work. When asked about his educational qualification, a young man aged about 25 engaged in the pottery work says that he has no formal educational qualification and he has never attended any school.

The villagers are mainly depending upon the local market for the selling of their finished products. Sometimes they are also sending their products to the pre-determined dealers from whom they would have got contract. Though hereditarily the potter families are doing the pottery work out of their own resources, now banks are interested in providing loans to them. This year Koraput Panchabati Gramya Bank has provided Rs 3 lakh of loan to a group of potters comprising 30 households. A skill development programme on terracotta making and painting on the finished products was organised by the government officials. The villagers claim that they can earn nearly 4-5 thousand rupees per month to sustain their family. Besides this they also cultivate paddy during the rainy season to augment their family income. The standard of living of the potter families is comparatively good, as some of them use mobile phones with multimedia features and direct to home facilities.

Although the public authority has done something to sustain the endangered craft of pottery, much more work needs to be done in this direction. The government has to introduce terracotta training and also formal education to this community. The most important help to the potter community the government can provide is the market facility. The private sector must be encouraged to come forward to take initiative in this direction, so that the pottery work can be sustained in this plastic age. Public sector banks should come forward to provide adequate finances to this pottery work, for the achievement of poverty alleviation and employment generation.

(Ashutosh Samal is studying Journalism & Mass Communication at the Central University of Orissa, Koraput. With a post-graduate degree in political science he believes that political news reporting and crime reporting are an interesting beat where he would like to excel. He can be reached at ashutosh.cuo@gmail.com)