PRESIDENT HONOURS CRAFT
PERSONS AS SHILP GURUS
The President,
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, today honoured 10 eminent craft persons
as Shilp Gurus at a function to commemorate the golden
jubilee of the Resurgence of Handicrafts in India at Vigyan Bhavan
here this evening. The function was organised by the Development
Commissionerate for Handicrafts of the Ministry of Textiles. The
craft persons who were honoured today were Shri C. Parameshwarachar
(wood carving) from Karnataka, Shri Ganapathi Sthapathi (stone
carving) from Tamil Nadu, Shri Guruppa Chetty (kalamkari)
from Andhra Pradesh, Shri Jivya Soma Mashe (Warli painting) from
Maharashtra, Shri Vinayak Saalvi (Patola) from Gujarat, Shri Kirpal
Singh Shekhawat (ceramics) and Shri Jagdish Lal Soni (thewa)
from Rajasthan, Smt. Sona Bai Rajwar (clay relief work) and Shri
Jai Dev Baghel (dhokra) from Chhatisgarh, and Shri Nawang
Tsering (clay sculpture) from Leh, J&K.
The
President also released a set of four commemorative stamps on
the handicrafts tradition of India. The stamps, each in the denomination
of Rs. Five, feature cane and bamboo artefacts, thewa art,
dhokra casting and patola fabrics. The Minister
for Communications, IT and Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Pramod
Mahajan, handed over the stamp album to Dr. Abdul Kalam.
The
Minister of Textiles, Shri Kashiram Rana, presented to the President
monographs on the lifetime achievement of the distinguished craft
persons, Shri V. Ganapathi Sthapathi and the late Ali Hasan Naqshband.
The monographs were by Ms. Sabitha Radhakrishna and Dr. Anjan
Chakravarty respectively.
Speaking
on the occasion, the President lamented that the income of the
crafts person was not commensurate with the time and effort he
put in. He wanted shopping complexes to be made for a cluster
of villages with adequate communication
facilities where handicrafts could also be sold. He advised the
Ministry of Textiles to increase the earnings of the handicrafts
sector to Rs. 60,000 crore in the next five to six years.
Shri
Kashiram Rana said that an outlay of Rs.425 crore has been provided
for in the 10th Plan, which was 34 per cent more than
that in the 9th Plan. He said that the eight new schemes
envisaged by the Government would ensure the foreign exchange
earnings from the sector and betterment of the craft persons.
The
Minister of State for Textiles, Shri Basanagouda Patil, said that
the Government would adopt a cluster approach as a part of the
future strategy. He said that a basket of inputs in the form of
design technology, marketing, finance and welfare interventions
would be provided to identified clusters through Ambedkar Hastshilp
Vikas Yojana for ensuring sustainable development of the craft
persons.
The
Textiles Secretary, Shri S.B. Mohapatra, and the Development Commissioner
(Handicrafts), Smt. Tinoo Joshi, also spoke on the occasion.
