Rasulpur: Tucked away in a quiet corner of Rasulpur block in Jajpur district, is the small village of Gopalpur. It has a population of little over 1,500 persons, most of whom are associated with weaving for which it is known as the ‘Weaver Village’ of Odisha. This village which has seen years of craft evolve on its lap, witnessed another major development as a ‘Weaver Haat’ was launched at the pala mandap in the locality, Sunday. The haat was launched by ‘Jai Jagannath Bunakar Mahaprasad Seva Samiti’ in the village and started operations after senior weavers performed a puja.
Over 50 weavers from the village brought their products to the haat and sold them to customers. Materials like tussar clothes, pata saree, shawls, sheets, stoles, gamchhas (towels), scarves and handkerchiefs will be available in the haat.
Earlier, the weavers used to sell their products through a cooperative society to state-owned Serifed, Boyanika, Utkalika and Sambalpuri Vastralaya and so the profit was minimal. The haat will provide an opportunity to the weavers to directly sell their products to customers and increase their profits. It will also help them in getting feedback from the customers and improve on their product quality. The buyers will also be able to get quality products at a fair price without any hidden costs. The market will be called the ‘Jai Jagannath Bunakar Sapathik Haat’ and as the name suggests, will be held every week. On the first day of its inauguration, sale proceeds were to the tune of over Rs 5 lakh. The market will open at 5.00pm every Sunday and shutters will come down at 9.00pm. Officials said that various types of materials woven by local weavers will be available for buyers.
Raw materials and equipment used for weaving will be sold in the haat for the customers, stated Amulya Soor, Baikuntha Soor, Ranjan Soor, Lakshmidhar Das, Biswaranjan Das and Dharmendra Das while talking to media persons. Incidentally, all of them are local weavers who also displayed their wares in the market and made considerable profits on an inaugural day.