Bokaro Steel City Artisan Craft Tradition

Bokaro Steel City, built in the 1960s with Soviet technical assistance as India's fourth steel plant, created a planned industrial township in Bokaro district that supports a significant workforce of migrant workers from across Bihar, Jharkhand, and UP. Alongside the steel plant, Bokaro district's tribal hinterland maintains Munda and Oraon craft traditions including dokra bell-metal casting, sohrai wall painting, and bamboo basketry practised in villages outside the steel township. The Bokaro district craft cooperative markets tribal artisan products from the hinterland at the steel city's urban consumer market — creating an unusual craft economy where tribal NTFP-based livelihoods coexist with India's heaviest industrial infrastructure.