Clouds of despair loom over Channapatna toy makers
As demand wanes to a new low, skilled artisans of Channapatna, a city in Ramanagara District of Karnataka, known for its charming wooden toys are bound to relinquish their traditional craft of toy making.
This is something contrary to the centre’s vision of #VocalForLocal & boosting toy manufacturing which envisages Koppala to become India’s first toy manufacturing cluster with 400 acres SEZ and avant grade infrastructure which is likely to generate 40,000 jobs in five years. Number of artisans which were engaged in toy making was around 9000 erstwhile which has dwindled to approx 1500 currently.
In earlier times, demand for the lacquered and hand-crafted wooden artefacts from Karnataka’s famous ‘toy town’ used to be high around Christmas and New Year. Though it keeps on fluctuating but pandemic has caught the industry from the scruff of its neck. Out of nearly 200-plus units, about 25 to 30 per cent are functioning on a nominal basis owing to a lack of demand for toys and the artisans are left on the mercy of sporadic online sales as bulk orders are no more the order of the season.
Channapatna’s toys making tradition can be traced back at least 200 years during the reign of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan in the 18th century.