Bhubaneswar: Principal Secretary, Handlooms, Textiles & Handicrafts and Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment Department, Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee has inaugurated “MRUTTIKA-2022” today evening.
Odisha has immensely rich craft tradition with magnificent craftsmanship. As many as 50 different crafts have been approved by Govt. of Odisha practiced by more than 1.50 lakh artisans in varied degrees and are dispersed through-out the state. The State has got best craftsmanship with 188 artisans honoured with National level Awards including 4 nos. of Padma Awards and 13 nos. of Shilpigurus. Besides, 312 nos. of artisans have been conferred with State level Awards.
“Terracotta” 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) etc. 5 Nos. terracotta artisans have been conferred with National Level Awards and 18 terracotta artisans have been awarded with State Level Awards.
Govt. of Odisha in 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.
To provide a platform for marketing of the products of the clusters and individual artisans, an exclusive craft specific exhibition in terracotta has been organized by the Directorate of Handicrafts since 2006. This year the terracotta exhibition is organized in the name of “MRUTTIKA-2022” from 15th – 22nd October’ 2022 in the Ekamra Haat, Unit-III, Bhubaneswar to facilitate the artisans/ SHGs/Co-operative societies to display & sell their products. Provision for 125 stalls have been made and around 250 artisans are participating in the exhibition from 26 districts such as Keonjhar, Jajpur, Balasore, Subarnpur, Baragarh, Rayagada, Khurda, Nayagarh, Dhenkanal, Puri, Mayurbhanj, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Bolangir, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Koraput, Nabarangpur, Gajapati, Angul, Boudh, Kalahandi, Kandhamal and Nuapada. It is expected to attain a business turnover of Rs.175.00 lakhs during this event.
Others present on the inaugural ceremony were Special Secretary, HTH Department Srikant Prusty, Director, Handicrafts Shyambhakta Mishra, MD, Utkalika Suraj Kumar Patel, Additional Secretary Bikramaditya Barik, Terracota artisan Anjulata Behera.