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Their traditional profession loses glitter

BERHAMPUR: For the goldsmiths of the city and its adjoining areas, their traditional profession has lost its glitter.

There are around 1300 goldsmith families living in Berhampur. For generations they have been involved in making ornaments of gold and silver.

But their current generation is compelled to leave the parental profession to chose other professions as making jewellery is considered no more a profitable profession. But it may be noted that Berhampur was well known throughout the State for its gold bullion market. Large numbers of jewllery shops dot the Badabazar area of the city. And their number is increasing every year.

According to president of the Berhampur Swarnakar Sangh, P.Veerabhadra Rao, with the increase of jewellery shops the employment opportunity of goldsmiths has not increased. earlier the jewellery shops used to engage goldsmiths of the city and other parts of the district to get their stock prepared. "But since last few decades our scope of work has started to go down as the jewellery shops have started procuring readymade ornaments of gold and silver from outside the State," said Rao. Unlike the past, most families now prefer to buy readymade jewellery rather than employing a goldsmith to prepare their ornaments during festive season like Diwali or Dushera.

During last few years ornaments produced in Mumbai, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Kolkata have taken over large space in the showcases of jewellery shops of the city. These ornaments are produced with high-tech machineries at large scale, which reduces their cost of production and increases marketability. With the price of gold soaring high, the customers have started to search for jewellery of innovative designs which would weigh and cost less. The traditional goldsmiths of the city are usually lacking the capability to produce ornaments using very small amount of gold or silver, which is the demand of the market now, said a gold ornament merchant of the city. They feel to meet the changing trend the goldsmiths of the city and adjoining areas would have to become adept at preparing ornaments out of small amounts of gold with more artistry.

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