SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, July 20: IIT Indian School of Mines (ISM) Dhanbad has launched an exclusive store, the first of its kind in premium technical institutions across the country, to showcase handicraft products of its Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) Foundation trained rural artisans.
Prof JK Pattanayak, director of IIT ISM who inaugurated the shop, highly appreciated the initiative of the ACIC and said it will help in the marketing of the products made by the rural artisans.
Deputy Director Prof Dheeraj Kumar, Bhuwan Bhaskar, Assistant Director of Handicrafts, Ministry of Textiles, Akansha Sinha, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) ACIC and Camelia Chaudhary, manager ACIC were also present on the occasion.
At the exclusive store ceramic jewellery, organic soaps, blue pottery, bamboo handcrafted products are to be sold.
An IIT ISM official said a two-day handicraft-making competition was also organized by the ACIC Foundation on July 18-19 in which 120 artisans from different parts of Jharkhand and Bihar participated.
The artisans made a wide range of products like sculpture, lac bangles, Madhubani Art, Dhokra Art, Dikki Art; Kantha stitch and fabric painting embroidery during the function.
The first prize went to Bhola Kumar Pandit, for his terracotta sculpture of Lord Shiva while the second prize was given to Nizam Jadupetia who made Dokra art product. The third prize was bagged by a group of Kamini Sinha and Sweety who made a painting out of waste products based on the theme of Global Warming.
Prof JK Pattanayak highly appreciated the efforts of artisans in making products.
Prof Dheeraj Kumar, in his address, spoke about the journey of ACIC that started in 2020 and lauded the innovative research as well as training carried out at the centre.
The participating artisans registered for the event as part of 40 teams, each comprising of three members belonging to different places like Madhubani, Ranchi, Dumka, Deoghar, Dhanbad, Maithon, Koderma, Simdega, Sindri, Giridih, Hazaribagh, Parasnath and Gomoh.
Madhu Kumari, one of the participating artisans who made a designer wall clock using resin art said she decorated the clock using natural flowers besides ears of wheat.
Ved Prakash, a Madhubani painter, making a painting along with two other team members Anjali Kumari and Supriya Kumari said “Through the painting, we are depicting the gradual progress of science and technology that took place in our country”.
