Pune: The demand for traditional earthen pots, which is used for storing and cooling drinking water, and popularly known as ‘matka’, has decreased this summer, claimed potters and sellers in Pune.
According to them, there is a drop of 30-40 per cent in the sale of these pots.
Anil Pandey, a seller at Kumbhar Wada, a busy marketplace of clay products, said, “Till the previous year, there was normal demand for earthen pots, but this summer even when the temperature of the city has reached its highest, the sale has not picked up.”
Another pot seller, Suresh Yadav, who has a stall in Aundh Gaon, also said that there has been a drop in the sale of pots this year. “I think people are preferring cooling water in the refrigerator instead,” he said.
As heaps of pots lay by the roadside, plain ones and designer pots, ranging from Rs 75 to Rs 350 are covered in dust for want of customers. Pandey added, “By mid-season this year, it was difficult to anticipate how many pots we would sell in a day; it could be 10 or just four.”
A regular customer at his stall, Sumedha Godambe, who is from Bajirao Road, said, “Though we have a refrigerator and water coolers in our house, my family still prefers to drink fresh and cool water from the pots and not chilled water from the refrigerator, which triggers a cough and cold.”
Menka Kand, a resident of Siddharth Nagar Society, Aundh, said, “We used to store water in earthen pots earlier but now we don’t use it anymore. Now we mix normal water with the refrigerated water before drinking. I have stopped using earthen pots because you will never know when it can fall and break and get damaged.”
Also, the space a pot occupies in the kitchen is an issue, she added.
