Floods leave Thoothukudi pottery industry in a mess

Thoothukudi district's earthenware making units devastated by floods, leaving 10,000+ pots unsold for Pongal festival.

The recent floods that inflicted a huge loss to the public has almost devastated the earthenware making units of Thoothukudi district. They used to supply hundreds of earthen pots for making ‘pongal’ ahead of the Pongal festival every year.

Floods have paralysed the units at Vazhavallan near Eral. ‘Pothigai’ women self-help group, which would be making decorative earthen pots and earthen stoves with colourful paintings and marketing them every year, has been badly affected.

 Led by T. Sivasakthi and Subbulakshmi, the SHG has been training women in making earthen pots and stoves and decorating them with aesthetic paintings for the Pongal festival. The 10,000-odd pots with each having capacity to cook rice of 500 grams to 5 kg are sold in the southern districts up to Madurai.

 “After investing ₹8 lakh, we started making the pots and stoves for this season with the clay we had stored. We made 10,000 earthen pots and 9,500 stoves which were ready for baking in the kiln. The unexpected downpour and consequent floods have wiped out everything. With the remaining clay, we have so far made only 500 pots, which may go up to 2,000 before January 13. Since our products are sought after, we used to sell over 10,000 pots every year,” says Ms. Sivasakthi.

Consequently, the SHG has been forced to cancel the orders placed by its customers.

 “Though we have suffered a huge loss, we have not increased the price since it was fixed before the floods. We sell it for ₹200 to ₹600 as usual. We have approached the District Industries Centre to bail us out and the officials have responded positively. If we get subsidised loan, we will come out of this trap,” says Ms. Subbulakshmi.