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A kulhar (Hindi: कुल्हड़ and Urdu: کلہڑ) or kulhad, matir bhar () or simply bhar (ভাঁড়), sometimes called a shikora, is a traditional handleless pottery cup from South Asia that is typically undecorated and unglazed, and is meant to be disposable. Kulhars are almost never reused.
Bazaars and food stalls in the Indian subcontinent traditionally served hot beverages, such as tea, in kuhlars, which suffused the beverage with an "earthy aroma" that was often considered appealing. Yogurt and hot milk with sugar as well as some regional desserts, such as kulfi (traditional ice-cream), are also served in kulhars. Kulhars have gradually been replaced by polystyrene and coated paper cups, because the latter are lighter to carry in bulk and cheaper.
Critics countered that the railways would need to dispense about 1.8 billion kulhars a year, which would mean heavy fuel consumption in the kilns with associated pollution. Kulhars were claimed to take up to a decade to degrade, however the discovery of thousands of years old shards from Indus Valley ruins was used as evidence to challenge that assertion and that they are environmentally superior. Fears were also expressed that a kulhar revival might result in topsoil depletion at the rate of per state per day and that the economic gains to rural artisans would be minimal. Although alternatives to topsoil are available and kulhars can be made at lower temperatures to save fuel and make them more rapidly degradable, by 2008 the effort to revive kulhar use on the railways was being considered a failure with the continuing widespread use of plastic and coated-paper cups. The primary reasons were the weight of kulhars and the higher per-unit cost. One estimate claimed procurement costs to be 140 paisas per kulhar and 7–10 paisas for coated-paper cups. There were also some vendor complaints that, because kulhars absorb liquids to some extent, buyers have to be given more tea per serving in a kulhar than in a disposable plastic cup.
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