Telangana’s silver filigree artist selected for national award

Silver filigree artist and Silver Filigree of Karimnagar general secretary Gadde Ashok Kumar has been selected for a national award

Karimnagar: Silver filigree artist and Silver Filigree of Karimnagar general secretary Gadde Ashok Kumar has been selected for a national award for manufacturing a silver palanquin. The union Ministry of Textiles selected Ashok Kumar for the award under the handicrafts category for the year 2018.

Ashok Kumar will receive the award from Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar in a programme to be held in Vignan Bhavan, New Delhi, on November 28. Ashok Kumar said he got a communication regarding this from the Ministry of Textiles.

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Ashok Kumar, who manufactured a number of silver articles, prepared a palanquin using 1.5 kilograms of silver spending two months on the project. He had sent it for competitions for the year 2018. However, award distribution functions were not conducted for 2017, 2018, and 2019 due to various reasons including the pandemic.

Speaking to Telangana Today, he said earlier, bridegrooms used to be carried in palanquins. However, people were not following the age-old tradition. Instead of doing so, the bridegroom’s family was presenting palanquins to the groom’s family by placing vermillion and turmeric in it. In this context, he had made a palanquin.