Writing its destiny in lead
JAMMU & KASHMIR: The Oukhoo village in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district is playing a key role in educating the entire country. The village was popularly known as ‘Pencil Village’, supplies 80-90 per cent of raw material to the country’s pencil manufacturing units.The village shot to fame in 2021 after Prime Minister, Narendra Modi mentioned its success story in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’. “If the students across the nation do their homework, prepare notes, it is because of the hard work of the people of Pulwama,” he had said.
The turnaround for the village happened in 2012 when a young entrepreneur, Manzoor Ahmad Allai, visited Hindustan Pencil manufacturing unit in Jammu. He met the officials there and after lengthy talks, convinced them that he can supply the raw material. The pencil slates are made up of Kashmir’s famous poplar trees, which is best suited for manufacturing pencils due to its moisture level. The poplar wood grows best in the Valley as the moisture content is ideal and the weather conditions allow the wood to remain soft during the tree’s growth.
Before 2012, the poplar tree logs were chopped in the bandsaw and transported to the pencil manufacturing unit in Jammu. However, since 2012 onwards Manzoor and other entrepreneurs have been transporting small dried pencil slates in polymer bags to Himachal Pradesh’s manufacturing unit. It has made the job of the manufacturing unit easy and also increased production. On an average, every slate manufacturing unit nowadays is sending a vehicle loaded of slates comprising 300 bags to the HP’s manufacturing unit every second day.
“Now the pencil manufacturing unit gets the raw material in ready mode. They have to colour and place lead in it and carry out some other process for producing pencils,” said Manzoor, who owns Jhelum Agro Industries.
According to officials, there are 18 slate factories in Kashmir and 17 of them are in Pulwama. Manzoor said half of the slate factories are in Oukhoo village. “I have got three units. There are other 3-5 units in the village,” he said.The village is also providing employment to the local youth. Over 200 people of the village comprising about 250 families are earning their livelihood in these pencil slate factories.
Haji Abdul Aziz Allai, owner of another slate making unit in Pulwama said, “I am a 10th pass and could not continue my studies. But I am playing my part in educating the children of the country by providing raw material for pencils.” According to Manzoor, India earlier used to import wooden supplies from countries like China but since opening up of slate manufacturing units in Oukhoo village and other parts of the Valley, the country’s 90 per cent pencil demands are met from the Valley only. Manzoor said the fame of the ‘pencil village’ has transformed it. “Not only has it led to economic empowerment of the people of the village but also the literacy rate in the village has increased,” he said.