Kolkata, Sep 23 (Inditop.com) Construction work to give a fresh lease of life to Kumortuli, the potters’ town that churns out thousands of idols of goddess Durga and her pantheon every year, is likely to begin in November. The Kolkata civic agency has finally geared up to rehabilitate thousands of artisans.
“We’re likely to start the construction of the Kumortuli modernisation project in November this year,” Vivek Bharadwaj, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Agency (KMDA) CEO, told Inditop.
“We are expecting it would take at least two years to finish the entire work. We have already calculated a specific timeframe.”
“We are now developing a temporary structure near the Kumortuli area – just a five-minute walking distance from the potters’ town – where we’ll temporarily rehabilitate the artisans once we start construction work at the site.
“We’re utilising the time without disturbing the process of making idols of goddess Durga,” he said.
Kumortuli, where 4,000-odd artisans live under filth, dirt and leaky roofs, is a three-century-old potters’ town in the heart of Kolkata. The term ‘kumor’ denotes a potter and ‘tuli’ means locality in Bengali.
The run-up to Durga Puja, which begins this week, is the time that brings business for the artisans.
According to Bharadwaj, the artisans will be shifted to temporary sheds once the festive season is over.
The foundation stone of the Kumortuli modernisation project was laid by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in February this year. “We initially started our work at the site but soon it was stopped because of the April-May general election,” Bharadwaj said.
“After that, we could not continue as it was considered to be the high time for thousands of Kumortuli artisans – all of them got involved in the process of idol making in the run-up to the Durga Puja festival,” Bharadwaj said.
The Kumortuli modernisation project, worth Rs.260 million, will be implemented by KMDA under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNURM).
Sources said 35 percent of its cost would be borne by the central government, 15 percent by the state government and the remaining 50 percent would be arranged through bank loans.
According to the project blueprint, the KMDA will construct houses for the artisans over five acres of land in the Kumortuli area on the ground-plus-three-floors pattern. It will also build an art gallery for artisans to showcase their artefacts.
Sources said the Kumortuli modernisation plan was conceptualised in 2005 and was supposed to be implemented in 2007.
“We’re happy that the project is finally on the ground. We had been demanding this rehabilitation project for long, but it got stuck in the cumbersome bureaucratic process. Now we artisans can see a thin ray of hope as the KMDA has begun construction of the temporary sheds at a nearby location of Bagbazar area,” said Panchanan Rudra Pal, a Kumortuli artisan.
He said the shifting of Kumortuli artisans would begin from November this year, once the festive season is over.
Rudrajit Pal, who owns Shambhu Studio, told Inditop: “It’ll be good for all the artisans of Kumortuli if the modernisation project gets started. Every year we have to work under hostile condition and tremendous pressure. We have to finish idols during the monsoon season, braving a heavy spell of rain, leaky roofs and water-logging problem.
“But if the KMDA successfully finishes the project, we won’t have to face similar problems in future.”
The history of Kumortuli dates back to the 17th century when potters in search of better livelihood came from Krishnagar to Gobindapore, a prosperous village on the banks of the Bhagirathi – now river Hooghly – to make a living by making pots, clay toys and cooking utensils for household use.
Later, when the land at Gobindapore was required by the British East India Company to build Fort William, the inhabitants migrated further up the river to Sutanuti. The potters moved on to the new destination, settled over a vast area and named it Kumortuli.
