Come Raksha Bandhan, some sisters can tie ‘rakhis’ having seeds of tomato, cucumber, capsicum, tulasi, and the like.

A social entrepreneurship called Paper Seed near Mangaluru has made those ‘rakhis’. It has also made some terracotta ‘rakhis’ having seeds.

If COVID-19 restrictions are preventing people from personally purchasing the ‘rakhis’, one can get them through the postal department.

Paper Seed founded by artist Nitin Vas at Pakshikere, on the outskirts of the city, is two-years-old now. It makes eco-friendly products and provides green solutions. His entrepreneurship in a rural area has provided permanent employment to six persons and indirect employment to many artisans.

An alumnus of Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts (CAVA), Mysuru, Mr. Vas told The Hindu that Paper Seed sold about one lakh seed papers having a variety of seeds in the past two years. They had been made only from recycled papers.

It also makes eco-friendly jewellery, earrings, keychain, ladles, cups from coconut shells, driftwood sculptures, baskets from locally available creepers and climbers. Some of the other products include seed pens, bamboo toothbrush, designed paper mache, seed paper notepad, paper straw, recycled paper cards, newspaper seed pencils, organic agarbatti, and the like.

“All our products are plastic free,” Mr. Vas said adding that it has made ‘rakhis’ from seed paper and terracotta for the first time. In both the ‘rakhis’, the seeds are hidden in the pendants made from paper pulp and terracotta. “We are making at least 2,000 seed paper ‘rakhis’ and 500 terracota rakhis,” he said.

It made 11,000 seed paper flags for Independence Day last year. He said that Sahaya, a Hyderabad-based non-government organisation, and many other volunteers have helped in marketing its products, all handmade. Like others, COVID-19 has also hit its marketing badly affecting artisans.

In addition to using social media for marketing, it has adopted community connect approach to market the products of artisans.