Bhubaneswar: Odisha handlooms, textiles & handicrafts minister Padmini Dian inaugurated the 15th Annual Terracotta Exhibition on Friday.
Odisha has immensely rich craft tradition with magnificent craftsmanship. As many as 50 different crafts have been approved by Odisha government practiced by more than 1.30 lakh artisans in varied degrees and are dispersed through-out the State. The State has got best craftsmanship with 168 artisans honoured with national level Awards including 4 Padma Awards and 11 Shilpigurus. Besides, 290 artisans have been conferred with State level Awards.
“Terracotta & Pottery” is one of the approved crafts of the State mostly practiced by the traditional Kumbhakars and trained youths almost in every district. There are more than 10000 terracotta artisans in the State who are producing traditional, decorative & utility terracotta-based items.
There are more than 40 clusters of terracotta in the State, out of which some of the focused terracotta craft pockets are Sonepur (Subarnpur), Barapalli (Baragarh), Haldharpur (Keonjhar), Nuagaon (Khurda), Lunukua (Jagatsinghpur), Kusumi (Koraput), Chintamanipur (Balasore), Trisalaya (Bhadrak).
Three terracotta artisans have been conferred with national awards and 18 terracotta artisans have been awarded with State Awards.
The State handlooms, textiles & handicrafts department is providing promotional supports for growth of the handicraft sector including market assistance by organizing exhibitions. Various need based interventions are provided to the individuals, SHGs, Cooperative Societies and apex bodies for capacity building, skill upgradation training, supply of improved tools and equipments, providing bank linkage, infrastructure development, product designing & diversification, marketing assistance to participate in different exhibitions etc. In order to produce market-oriented products, design development programmes engaging designers from inside and outside the state are conducted in clusters to create wide range of products. Online Marketing has been introduced through Utkalika for marketing of handicraft products.
This year the terracotta exhibition is organized in the name of “MRUTTIKA-2020” from 06th – 12th November’ 2020 in the Exhibition Ground, Unit-III, Bhubaneswar to facilitate the artisans/ SHGs/ Cooperative societies to display & sell their products. 101 stalls have been erected and nearly 157 artisans are participating in the exhibition from more than 20 districts such as Keonjhar, Jajpur, Balasore, Subarnpur, Baragarh, Rayagada, Khurda, Nayagarh, Dhenkanal, Puri, Mayurbhanj, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Bolangir, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Koraput, Nabarangpur. It is expected to attain a business turnover of Rs.125.00 lakhs during this event. Live Demonstration programme on “Terracotta” craft will be organised during this exhibition.
Among others secretary Subha Sarma, director handicrafts Basanta Kumar Dash, Sanatan Nayak and Sudhansu Ranjan Pradhan attended the programme online.
