Lucknow :

The beautiful bracelets, earrings and necklaces tourists never fail to pick from Varanasi became officially exclusive to the temple town with Geographical Indication Registry of India registering the handicraft.

The uniqueness of these beads, known as `kaanch ke moti’ (glass beads), could be gauged from the fact that `no two beads can be identical even when they show striking similarity’.

An application to this effect was presented in July , 2009 by export promotion commissioner, department of small scale industries and Banaras Glass Beads Association. The GI certificate, awarded on November 10, 2016, will remain valid up to July 2019. Raahul Dutta, counsel for the UP government who is pursuing the case, said, “The GI tag would benefit craftsmen by safeguarding its uniqueness which has been challenged by men and machines in China.The state would also be able to generate revenue from the work.”

Alok Kanungo -assistant professor, archaeology department, IIT, Gandhingar, who has studied glass beads of India -shared why the Varanasi glass beads are unique. “India has three major glass bead industries -Papanaidupet (Chitoor, Andhra Pradesh), Puralpur (near Hathras) and Varanasi -which are segregated on the basis of the technique used,” he said.

Asserting that Banaras glass bead was a pure handicraft, he added, “The technique used in Varanasi, called lamp winding, makes it unique. In this, glass is transformed into rods or sticks known as canes.Workers melt them at a small heat source, usually a lamp (hence the name). The glass is wound around a wire. While it is still hot, the bead may be shaped or given colour. Once cooled, beads are knocked down.”

President of Banaras beads association Ashok Gupta said more than 5,000 artisan families in Varanasi, parts of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra manufacture 50,000 varieties of glass beads in various shapes and sizes. A worker may take 5-20 minutes to make a single bead.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Lucknow News / by Shailvee Sharda / TNN / November 23rd, 2016