Shot in the arm to handicraftsmen

Sandasen MARASINGHE

The National Crafts Council has initiated another mechanism to provide handicraft artistes island wide a means to increase their income by selling their products to the buyers without the support of middlemen with establishment of a Handicraft Sales Complex at the NCC premises.

The Handicrafts Sales Complex at Pelawatta, Battaramulla which consists of thirty stalls and initiated with the support of Tourism Ministry will be opened on March 01.

National Crafts Council Chairman Buddhi Keerthisena told the Daily News that one of the major complaints made by the handicraft artistes was that they had no avenues to sell their products to the local and foreign buyers directly due to intermediate businessmen earning undue profits driving the artistes into poverty.

Chairman Keerthisena further stated that as an initial measure the NCC initiated the sales complex and an artiste could remain in the stall only for a week and sell his products.

The complex is open round the year and the buyers also are provided an opportunity to observe how the handicrafts were produced.

The handicraft artistes at the stall would be provided with accommodation facilities if they needed.

Around 1,200 artistes have applied for stalls so far and most of them were from the Western Province and Southern Province. There were around 15,000 registered handicrafts artistes islandwide.