R&D WILL SUSTAIN THE ARTISTIC ASTHETICITY OF DANGARIA TRIBE
Badal Tah,Odishabarta
R & D WILL SUSTAIN THE ARTISTIC ASTHETICITY OF DANGARIA TRIBE: CENTRAL GOVT’S HANDICRAFT COMMISSION UNDER MINISTRY OF TEXTILES TO PROMOTE SUCH INITIATIVES IN RAYAGADA
Rayagada,14/01/21:Dangaria Kandha, a primarily Vulnerable Tribal Group(PVTG) of Rayagada, earlier known as a primitive group, is enshrined with rich culture including their shawl known as “Kapda Gunda”, which is hand woven with yarn having natural colours.
During a recent awareness workshop organized by office of Development Commissioner(handicrafts) under the aegis of Ministry of Textiles, GOI, the outgoing Collector Sri Pramod Kumar Behera, as Chief Guest deliberated the need to conserve the skillful artistic venture of Dangaria Tribe like their shawls and other materials. He agreed that a research is needed from the source, ie, from the production of qualitative yarn to base weaving cloth to skill of dangaria women in adding natural colour and sewing in their traditional needle. Ms.Shailaja, Deputy Director from the Ministry complemented the Collector by saying that R&D for these kind of creative products is a sine-qua-non to sustain their aesthetic value. “Keeping their intrinsic quality intact, these products need to be mass produced using available technology through training and mainstreamed thorough govt e-marketing, GST, etc. my ministry is committed to take this process forward., said Shailaja. Badal Kumar Tah, a senior journalist, suggested to hire the services of professional designers from Industrial Design Centre, IIT, Mumbai and NID-Ahmedabad and requested the district administration to provide logistics. Shailaja opined to that these designers should get themselves empanelled in the Ministry when the there is an advertisement for the same.
Participating as a Guest of Honour, Sri Bikash Chandra Baina, General Manage, Regional Industries Centre, Rayagada clarified some bottlenecks faced by the entrepreneurs in e-marketing and their simple solutions. He assured to synthesize the efforts of the Textile Ministry with available schemes with sound subsidies by DIC. Sri Sudarshan Padhi, Project Manager of Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihoods Improvement Programme(OPELIP) at Dangaria Kandha Development Agency(DKDA), Chatikana, Bissam Cuttack explained about the steps taken up for improvement of handicrafts of Dangaria Kandhas, especially the technical training of women from this community. He stress upon the training of trainers for producing more weavers and craftsperson’s.
As a token of recognition to the traditional craftspersons, 66 ID cards from Ministry of Textiles, GOI were distributed to Dangaria tribals from Khambesu village and Dhokra artisans from Gotiguda village. To promote Kapda Gunda shawls, Shailaja, Behera and Baina jointly distributed twenty sewing machines with necessary kits to accelerate the production process. To boost the marketing of the handicrafts, Sri Sudhanshu Pradhan of Govt e-marketing and State Amazon Head Sri Durga Madhab Nahak spoke on the occasion. Sri Himanshu Sekhar Pandia, Director of Prerana Crafts showcased his bottle gourd crafts and felicitated the coveted guests on behalf of the ministry. Shailaja gave a commitment to train the Dangaria tribal women for five months in machine weaving of the shawl produced by them. According to Shailaja, five hundred IDs will be provided phase wise to Dangaria tribals after being identified by DKDA. The entire event was moderated and vote of thanks was proposed by laureate Sri Dwiti Chandra Sahu.
