KOLLAM: Kulasekharapuram in Kollam has bagged the National award, ‘Panchayat saktheekaran puraskar’, for 2015-16. The panchayat authorities will be given the award at a function to be held in Lucknow on April 24. The award was declared after an inspection by the Central Panchayati Raj Ministry. The Panchayat has set up a new model in organic farming making it eligible for the best bio-farming Panchayat award. It employed integral vegetable cultivation programmes, upland paddy cultivation, fruit tree cultivation, and the production of value-added products including coconut oil and custard oil units with people’s participation.
“We have done upland paddy cultivation in 125 hectares with the help of 594 farmers. As many as 13,000 families were given 25 vegetable saplings each to make the Panchayat vegetable-sufficient. We got nearly 74 tonnes of vegetables as a result of our efforts. The Panchayat also took the initiative to do sesame cultivation in 200 hectares to produce ‘Onattukara Ellenna’ as a value-added product from sesame. We procured coconuts for '25 per kilogram to produce ‘Adinanadu Coconut Oil’,” said V.R. Binesh, agriculture officer, who was the key man in achieving the award.
The Panchayat also cultivated ‘Grand 9 banana’ in 30 hectares, a poly-house for high-tech cultivation, and 12 rain shelters to continue vegetable cultivation during rainy season. Ethnic tuber crops were promoted throughout the Panchayat. The developments in the agricultural sector resulted in Kulasekharapuram bagging the prestigious award. It has also instituted palliative care programmes in the health department, which got a special mention by the award committee.
