State owned Poompuhar, the arts and crafts arm of Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation, will soon be embellishing the upcoming Chennai Metro Rail stations. It will also be adding a traditional flavour to Rippon Building, the seat of the Chennai Corporation. Sculptures, paintings, earthenware, stone carving, wood works will be used to beautify both the places.
The strategy of Poompuhar, which derives its name from an ancient Tamil coastal city, is to tell the world about the fine arts from the State and also update them about the variety of products available in its basket. For Poompuhar, it is also a branding exercise.
A source from the department, says, “The discussions with Chennai Metro Rail Limited and Chennai Corporation is at initial stages. These visuals and art work would help build the brand and also create awareness about Poompuhar.”
It is learnt that for the bigger stations, the cost of embellishment would be around Rs 50 lakh and for the smaller one’s the estimated cost is around Rs 20 lakh. A total of 32 stations have been planned along the two lines of the Chennai Metro. Seven stations would be operational in the first stretch. The source refused to divulge the details when asked for the number of stations that would undergo a change.
In the Rippon building, certain pockets in the main block would adorn Poompuhar crafts. Going forward, Poompuhar has plans to take up embellishment work of big hotels and institutions that would require interior work. “The hotels usually hire external agencies to do this work. So we thought why not we source the products and assist them,” the source said.
The department officials feel that this would be another revenue stream for them. In the last one year, Poompuhar has been expanding its branding activities on social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter.
