Problems of pottery industry and policies for development: Case study of Koch Bihar district in West Bengal, India

In the present day, the pottery industry in India has been put forward as a major cottage industry in both small and big pottery concerns. In a predominantly rural country with a very low income and simple needs, pottery plays an important role. Besides providing employment to artisans, the sector offer job opportunities to non-artisans during slack seasons of agriculture and to other tertiary sector employees. An overwhelming majority of the pottery industrial units is found in Koch Bihar district, in the state of West Bengal. The artisan himself is the proprietor and works on his own initiative and with his own capital. As scientific and technical knowledge is lacking due to illiteracy and poverty, the techniques of production remain inferior and the products lack standardization. The objective of the present paper is to study the characteristic features of the pottery industry in the study area, problems of development of the sector and suggest suitable policy measures for its development. The present study is based on sixty eight sample units collected through primary survey. Cobb-Douglass production function method is used to study the nature of production function of pottery industry.