Vinayakar Chathurthi idols lie idle at Tiruchy's Kondayampettai, thanks to input costs, fund crunch

TIRUCHY: Life isn’t all colourful for artisans making magnificent idols for Vinayakar Chathurthi owing to multiple challenges. On the one hand pollution norms are forcing artisans to move away from using plaster of paris, the cheapest component for making idols for immersion, the input costs of traditional ingredients to make idols have skyrocketed on the other. Sales are severely hit, most of the potters are reportedly living with some of their unsold last year’s stock. Plus difficulty in sourcing funds and risks of getting trapped in usury.

Gone are the days when Kondayampettai in Tiruchy district, a hub in making idols for Chaturthi, bustling with several hundreds of Vinayaka idols in all sizes and colours. Turn to this year, the festival which falls on September 7 is fast approaching, but the usual scene of artisans busy transporting idols to various destinations across the state is missing. People involved in making idols, from 3 feet to 10 feet, share their miserable tales.

The humble look of sheds at Kondayampettai, a few kilometres away from Srirangam in Tiruchy, signifies their plight. Each shed in Kondayampettai used to make at least 100 Vinayaka idols and devotees from across the state used to throng to this sleepy village during the festival days. But this year the sheds haven’t been cleared of stocks of the last year.

“Several restrictions and changing dynamics of the business are hitting us. Earlier we made the idols using plaster of paris which was comparatively cheaper than clay and tapioca flour. Owing to pollution norms, the government has made us go back to traditional raw materials. We can’t make idols beyond 10 feet height”, says M Annapoorani who makes and sells Vinayaka idols at Mela Kondayampettai.

High raw material costs

Annapoorani said, that the cost of raw materials particularly, the tapioca flour has gone steeply high and so the making charges too have gone north. “Before the ban on the plaster of paris for making idols was implemented, we used to spend a maximum of Rs 5,000 for a 10-foot idol. But presently, due to the restrictions, we make idols made of clay which costs triple the amount in their making. For instance, making a 10-foot idol costs around

Rs 18,000. But the customers who are used to the old price try to negotiate for a lesser price, hitting our margins”, she said.

These workers start making idols from the Tamil month of ‘Thai’ (between January 15 and February 15) and the works will be completed by August.

Issue of sourcing funds

Most of these workers are traditional potters, their lives are so humble and they even cannot invest money in advance. They said, that when they approach the banks, officials refuse to give them loans. With no other option, they reportedly borrow from money lenders on a hefty interest rate. “Though there is a welfare board for us, it does not extend a helping hand to us to develop the business”, says G Jai Shankar of Manicka Vinayakar Agencies.

“I have invested Rs 5 lakh for idol making this year. I approached several persons for arranging loans but it went vain and so I borrowed money at the rate of 36 per cent interest”, said Jai Shankar, a third-generation artisan. Jai Shankar added he was forced to fall for metre interest loans at the fag end of the business period. “Most of my share of the profit goes to settling interest alone”, he added.

Seasonal business in doldrums

These workers do not have any job for six months except making idols. The artisans are forced to fix prices for idols taking into account the interest rate with which they have borrowed. “But the profit is too low. Not all customers understand our challenges. They tend to bargain with the price we fix, without knowing the input costs. For instance, a 10-foot idol’s production costs are anywhere between Rs 18,000 and 22,000 and most of the time. But people come and bargain for price anywhere between 17,000 and 19,000”, Jai Shankar said.

The potters who are making a living out of Vinayaka Chaturthi in recent times can’t afford to keep their stocks. They have to sell them off before immersion of Vinayaka idols and move on to other forms of artisan works. If artisans have to turn to making golu dolls, after chathurthi, they have to ideally clear the stocks. But Vinayaka Chathurthi which provided them with some new business after the immersion festival became popular decades back, is again bringing them down because of bottlenecks in sales.