Hoshiarpur’s wood inlay artworks to soon get Amazon presence

Under Project Karigar, the District Bureau of Employment Enterprises (DBEE) in Hoshiarpur conducted a workshop in association with Innovation Mission Punjab for the artisans. Experts briefed the artisans about the nuances of marketing their products via the e-commerce platform. A total of 40 artisans, eight members of a wood cluster called Wood Inlay, and five traders participated in the special workshop led by Amazon India on Wednesday.

Hoshiarpur Deputy Commissioner Komal Mittal, who chaired the event, said that all participants were very enthusiastic and eager to register and sell their artwork on Amazon India.

“Now, DBEE will provide handholding to Wood Inlay Cluster which has 160 artisans working under it for their smooth onboarding onto Amazon India. The cluster will work on mobilising youth from the villages to take up this work as a profession which in turn will give a major push to employment generation,” said the deputy commissioner.

Earlier elephant tooth, which was banned under Wildlife Protection Act 1972, was used for the artwork. It is used for making a wide range of items from heavy furniture such as sofas, beds, and almirahs to light-weight portable materials such as flower pots; decorative items, wall hangings, chessboards and kitchen utensils etc.

Aditya Ran, career counselling officer of DBEE, and Mangesh Sood, principal of Hoshiarpur Institute of Automotive and Driving Skills under the Punjab government, said that they are helping the wood cluster artisans to get registered with Amazon.

They said the process is on to get the GST number and other required formalities completed as early as possible so that the works can be displayed on Amazon. Also, the process for obtaining a GI tag for this rare artwork from the Hoshiarpur district is underway, they said.

“It is a unique craft. But because of a lack of proper marketing, the artisans are not getting paid properly and they are leaving the job, and the art may soon get extinct if not promoted in time. For six generations, this work is being done in this region,” said Rana, who added that his team is collecting rare documents regarding the work.

“Hoshiarpur is known for its rare ‘Inlay artwork’ which is being practised nowhere in the world. But now its copy is being done at several places. Still, our work is unique because we do it by engraving, while others do it by pasting the things,” said Satjog Singh, president of the Wood Inlay cluster, who participated in the workshop.

The craft is so unique that even a table of inlay work from 1857 made in Hoshiarpur is still displayed in a British museum.

Earlier, with an aim to promote this art ‘Wooden Handicrafts Centre’ (WHC) was opened in Boothgarh village in 2009. But that could not bring much prosperity to the artisans, several of whom had won national and state awards. A project was sponsored under the Scheme of the Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI), an initiative by the Ministry of MSME to promote cluster development. The Rs 1.12-crore worth project was set up in 2019 in a 75:25 ratio where the major share will be borne by the Central Government and the rest 25 per cent by the artisans. Under this project, a wood cluster was created and mechanised machines were set up in Hoshiarpur. But the business suffered a setback due to a lack of proper marketing.

Though the craftsmanship of Hoshiarpur artisans has been showcased at international events, including the prestigious Annual International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and at Surajkund, the poor craftsmen, who sit for hours working on a plastic-inlaid article in their small workshop have never got the proper dues of this labour-intensive work.

But the traders and middlemen have been minting huge amounts of money from this work. “Not only our works were showcased abroad but also the people from many countries came here to learn about the work,” said the president of the wood cluster.