South Dinajpur (West Bengal): The COVID-19 lockdown has adversely affected the 'carpet village' of West Bengal, with artisans struggling to make ends meet due to lack of orders.
Amulia, a village near Kumarganj in South Dinajpur district has earned the moniker of the 'carpet village' as around 150-200 families here are currently associated with the cottage carpet industry.
A few years back, some young men from the village had gone to Varanasi to learn the art of making carpets as they wanted to set up their own industry in Amulia. After returning from Varanasi, the artisans started making carpets themselves.
Later on, the skill was slowly absorbed by others in the village, including many women. While they started off with making carpets in their leisure time, women in the village are now completely reliant on carpet-making to earn their livelihood.
While all the raw material for the carpets come from Varanasi, even a bulk of the orders comes from a Varanasi-based company.
However, the artisans have been rendered jobless for the last few months due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown.
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The artisans stopped getting orders in March itself, during the initial days of the pandemic. With the lockdown, even raw materials could not reach the village from Varanasi.
Though the artisans started getting a few orders with the restrictions gradually easing, the carpet-makers complain that they are not earning enough in spite of the hard work they put in.
Carpets of varying sizes are made in Amulia. It takes around 30-45 days of gruelling work by three to make a 10-square-feet carpet. Making the entire carpet of this size and sending it to Varanasi costs Rs 20,000-30,000, but artisans earn only around Rs 160-200 a day.
Struggling to make ends meets, the carpet-makers have appealed for aid from the government, similar to the assistance provided to weavers in the state. The carpet artisans fear that their small industry will soon go extinct if the current situation persists.
