Terracotta craft items on display on Exhibition Ground, Bhanja Bhavan in Rourkela. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Rourkela, Feb. 7: A wide range of terracotta items are on display at a terracotta exhibition in the city leaving the local residents to spoilt for choice.

The six-day state-level exhibition that started on February 5 on Exhibition Ground near Bhanja Bhavan at Sector-V will culminate on February 10. The exhibition that has been organised by the directorate of handicraft and cottage industries aims to provide platform for marketing of terracotta products of the artisans.

“Normally, exclusive terracotta exhibitions were held in Bhubaneswar every year. Seeing the large number of people visiting the event and artisans getting a perfect platform to market their products, it was decided to organise another such event in Rourkela for the first time,” said director of the directorate Jagannath Mohanty.

Around 40 kiosks have been erected to provide 50 artisans from 10 districts and Bengal a common platform for marketing of the decorative products. The organisers hoped that people here would show interest in terracotta products and the exhibition would be a profitable venture for the artisans.

However, an artisan said that though three days had passed, they were not getting full response from the local residents. “We always get a great response of visitors and a good sale of our products in the Bhubaneswar exhibition, but that’s yet to happen here. We hope people will get to know about the event in the coming days and our products will be sold more,” said artisan Saroj Rout.

A visitor said there was no such event organised in this area for the local people to buy such decorative items, and even this time, not many were aware about the exhibition. “Now, we have a wide range of items to choose from. Most of them are beautiful. The artistry shown by the craftsmen is really commendable. I think it needs to be advertised properly to attract more people and hope in the coming days it will be a major attraction,” said C.S. Satpathy, a visitor to the exhibition.

The director said that around 2,150 artisans, who had been developed through the cluster development programmes of the directorate, had been given a chance to showcase their terracotta items in various exhibitions throughout the year. Terracotta items have a high market potential. “We hope this exhibition will slowly become a good platform for all,” said Mohanty.