Pottery and terracotta

About the business

Turning clay on a wheel into pots, vases, bowls, mugs and jugs and terracotta showpieces, then drying them in the sun and firing them before they can be sold. Bijoypur in Comilla Sadar Dakshin is the best known name in the trade. A few decades ago more than eight hundred Pal families across seven villages there worked in clay; about a hundred and fifty families remain, and the Bijoypur Rudrapal Pottery Cooperative Society, founded on 27 April 1961 by Akhtar Hameed Khan, has at least fifty of them. Bijoypur's clay goes to Japan, Canada, the United States and the Emirates. One thing is breaking it: gas. The society got its connection in 1991, the pressure began falling in 2015 and was close to zero by about 2017. Firing is now done with firewood and some of the output is spoiled by it. The earnings are plain enough. Parimal Pal, thirty-five years at the hand-turned wheel, is paid Tk 500 a day, and the women who do the design and finishing earn Tk 6,000 to 8,000 a month. Plastic and aluminium have shrunk the market for cooking pots, so those who survive have moved towards showpieces, planters and decorative goods.

Unit economics

What you need to start

• A wheel, hand-turned or powered, a kiln, a soaking tank for clay, tools for design and finishing, and straw and paper for packing. No documented equipment prices were found.Equipment
• Sticky clay, firing fuel -- gas, firewood or electricity -- and colour. With gas pressure close to zero at Bijoypur, firewood is the fallback, and it raises both the cost and the spoilage.Starting stock
• Trade licence from the union parishad, municipality or city corporation: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000 by trade type, in 3-5 working days.Licence
• The skill of throwing clay on a wheel, hand-turned or machine. Parimal Pal of Bijoypur has worked a hand-turned wooden wheel for thirty-five years. This is not learned in days, which is why finding a skilled potter is now the hardest part.Skill
• A clay supplier, a firewood or gas supplier and packing material. Joining a cooperative eases both market access and raw material, as Bijoypur's has done since 1961.Supplier
• Three separate spaces: a wheel room, an open yard for sun drying, and a kiln. A covered drying area is needed for the monsoon.Workspace

How the work is done

1. 1Decide what you will make: cooking pots, planters and ring slabs, or showpieces and decorative goods. Plastic and aluminium have shrunk the cooking pot market and its prices.
2. 2Fix your clay source. You need sticky clay, so know where it comes from and what it costs, and check the legal limits on cutting earth.
3. 3Take space for three separate things: the wheel room, an open yard for sun drying, and the kiln.
4. 4Find a potter or learn yourself. Both the hand-turned wooden wheel and the machine wheel are in use, but the skill takes years.
5. 5Take a trade licence from the union parishad or municipality, and ask whether BSCIC support or cooperative society membership is available.
6. 6Settle how you will fire: gas, firewood or electric. Gas spoils less; firing with firewood spoils part of every batch.
7. 7Fire a few samples first and see how many are spoiled. Do not take a large order before you know that rate.
8. 8Open your sales routes: the local haat, decor shops, nurseries, restaurant interiors and an online page. Showpieces fetch far more than cooking pots.
9. 9Build stock ahead of the fair season. The weeks before Pahela Baishakh are the biggest selling period.
10. 10Take separate care over packing and transport. Sent far without straw, paper and cartons, most of a consignment arrives broken.

Sources

• সিটি কর্পোরেশন থেকে ট্রেড লাইসেন্স প্রাপ্তির ধাপ সমূহ

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital · বাংলাদেশ

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