52 pottery villages, Rs. 38 million disbursed:

Three year plan to promote rural pottery industry

BY IRANGIKA Range

THE Small and Rural Industries Ministry has launched a three-year long term plan to promote small scale and rural potters to increase value addition of products and their productivity in the international market.

The Ministry has already set up 52 pottery product manufacturing villages islandwide by investing Rs.38 million under the Guru Pahayen Ran Pahayata program. It expects to launch this three-year long-term plan in each district by covering all pottery products manufacturing industrial villages.

The salient feature of the development plan is conducting a three-day training program to provide modern technology to potters in their industrial villages.

Under this technical training program, that the Ministry has introduced modern machinery which is more efficient, reducing production cost and saving time to burn clay by using chaff. This technology is more effective to manufacture high quality pottery products than manual making.

In addition, the Ministry provides equipment, infrastructure facilities, management training and direct marketing for these potters.

Project Consultant and the Coordinator to the Ministry Ajith Perera told the Daily News that the Ministry conducts this three- day technical training program by representing all pottery product manufacturers in each industrial village.

"This provides more benefits to cottage pottery manufacturers to develop their products by using modern technology. We have conducted two programs in Kurunagala and Anuradhapura and those were very successful. The program was held in Hambantota district recently.

Around 500 potters of 16 pottery products manufacturing industrial villages in the Hambantota district participated. The Ministry provided equipment for 350 families by investing Rs.6 million," he said.

"Under this program, we educate the potters, how to update quality and increasing value addition of their products." There are four major laboratory tests on clay.

We instruct potters, how to do these laboratory tests in their manufacturing process. It also includes the physical nature of clay, separating clay on its plasticity, the process of drying and the process of burning the clay," he said

"Although Sri Lanka has a long history for its traditional pottery industry, our society has ignored it during the past few years. The industry failed due to the lack of new technology and less support from the authorities.

Therefore the Ministry will take action directly to protect local industries and face the international market. The Ministry would rebuild potters' expectations and respect to sustain the industry by providing financial and technical support.

The Ministry will conduct the day and night camps for potters in district level and national level to encourage them. They will also offer brand names for each villager's products targeting the international market," he said.

Under this three-year long-term plan the Ministry has planned to set up new laboratory costing Rs. 700,000. The Ministry has also targeted to set up shopping complexes at major cities in Sri Lanka to provide market facilities to sell industrial villagers' products.