Soil shortage, poor demand decimating Bhaktapur’s pottery-making

Prajapati community, who specialise in making earthenware, have asked the Bhaktapur Municipality to get them a place from where they can source clay, but are yet to get a response.

Just half a decade ago, a week before Tihar festival, the Prajapati family would be busy manufacturing palas—traditional earthen lamps—at the Pottery Square in Bhaktapur. But for the last few years, their traditional occupation has been in a crisis, compelling many families like the Prajapatis to quit the generations-old business and seek alternatives.