Potters in the State are neck-deep in debt and are disappointed as the earthen pots matka, they had brought to the city to be used at the polling centres, remain unsold.

Besides table, chairs and toilets, administration also arranges for drinking water in every polling centre for which it buys earthen pots. Potters see this as an equivalent to summer season as hundreds of pots are sold in this time. like every election year, the potters swarmed in the capital expecting that they would sell their stock and return with sizable profit.

However, with only a day to go for the second phase of Assembly elections, the potters are far from a good income. They have not sold even one-fourth of their sales during elections. “I have been selling pots during the election time for over 30 years now. But this time, they are buying plastic buckets to store water instead of earthen pots. I will not be able to repay the loan I had taken against making these pots, let alone making profits,” said Randhir Singh, a city-based potter.

There are 1,678 polling centres in the district and at least two pots are required in each centre bringing the requirement to more than 3,350 pots. According to sources, the administration has bought merely 180 earthen pots till now. “We cannot buy the pots in advance as we do not place to store them. There is still much time left and we will buy more pots from the potters,” said JR Soni, additional commissioner, Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC), one day before the Assembly elections. He said the administration is buying both pots and plastic buckets according to the availability.

But the potters say they have little hope left. “For all these years, our pots were sold at least a week before the elections. We have no expectations from the administration now,” Singh said. He has taken a loan of Rs 50,000 and had saved dozens of pots in the summer season for the elections. Singh said that he has done the rounds of RMC but in vain.