BHUBANESWAR: As the Festival of Lights looms, denizens of the capital city are busy procuring gifts, apparel and home décor items for their loved ones.
Buying these at malls and mega stores can be an expensive affair however. On can instead go to NIFT expo and get specially designed handicrafts by artists from crafts village Raghurajpur.
Interacting with Orissa POST, Binay Bhusan Jena, director, NIFT, said, “Unfortunately, the artists of Raghurajpur were adversely affected by the cyclone Fani. To sustain them financially, NIFT along with Craft Council of India helped them develop new decors items for corporate gifts on the occasion of Diwali.”
“Tata group visited the campus today to place an order for Diwali gifts. Hence, we can see that this has genuinely helped artisans of the crafts village,” he added.
It may be noted that talented designers like Swikruti Pradhan and Aurodyuti Ghosh among others have helped Raghurajpur artisans to develop coasters, calendars, tissue paper boxes, table clocks, luggage tags, designer diaries, passport covers, lamp shades, wall clocks and palm leaf etchings.
Pradhan said, “We are already getting more orders from various corporate houses as well as regular buyers who are looking for unique Diwali gift items and what could be more appropriate than the above items developed by artisans like Narayan Das, Bijay Sahoo and others.”
Artist Bijay Sahoo also shared his happiness that the gloomy financial days at Raghurajpur is slowly fading away and thanks to the initiative of NIFT and Craft Council of India, artisans are getting paid handsomely.
It may be noted that the Palm leaf etchings and carving works has already put Odisha’s Raghrajpur on global map. NIFT and the artisans of Raghurajpur have shown the globe how to overcome challenges in the best possible way through creative pursuit.