Archive for October, 2008

Vedanta University Launches Agricultural Livelihoods Initiative

SAFAL – Sustainable Action for Farmers’ Livelihood

• At least 1500 farmer’s from 15 villages will be benefitted
• Focus on cash crop cultivation (Floriculture, Horticulture, Grafting, Nursery, etc)
• Aims at increasing family income &  improving living condition

14 Oct, Puri: In keeping with its avowed objective of ensuring a better life for the community while building a world class University near Puri, Vedanta University Project has launched a new livelihood initiative named, ‘SAFAL’ (Sustainable Action for Farmers’ livelihood). Set in motion on the sacred occasion of Gandhi Jayanti , this initiative has now taken a concrete shape with the formation of  28  farmers’ SHGs involving 500 farmers from 8 villages. The main objective of SAFAL is to take the local farmers away from the non remunerative ‘paddy paradigm’ and induce them to take up cash crop cultivation. It will ensure more income for them and hence, a better life also. At least 1500 farmers from 15 villages are going to benefit from it.

SAFAL has been launched after several rounds of need assessment surveys in the project impacted villages near Puri. It seeks to include more and more local farmers in its ambit and encourage them to switch over to floriculture, horticulture, nursery, etc, through SHGs. Vedanta University Project of Anil Agarwal Foundation will provide all forward and backward linkage support to these SHGs to make the initiative successful. For this purpose, Vedanta University project has tied up with ACCESS, a national level NGO, as a Technical Service Provider. ACCESS will impart knowledge and skills on high yielding cultivation practices to the farmers and will be instrumental in arranging any other necessary support including bank credit and market linkage. This is expected to result in a 150% increase in the income of at least 75% of the targeted farmers’ households.

In a meeting convened to formalize this initiative,  Mr Bhaskar Sharma, Collector and District Magistrate of Puri commended Vedanta University Project for such a noble initiative and expressed hope that it will surely improve the living condition of farmers in the project impacted villages.

Giving details of the new livelihood initiative, Prashant Hota, GM, PR & CSR, Vedanta University Project said, “ The success of  SAFAL will not only benefit the targeted farmers’ families, it will also motivate people in other villages to adopt similar activities both in farm and non-farm sectors to augment their income. This will ultimately ensure a better life for many.”

Mr. Sanjeev Anand Zutshi, Director, Vedanta University Project; Mr. C. Joseph, Head, Commercial; Mr. Kiran Naik, AGM, Finance and Dr B. N. Swain, Deputy Director, Agriculture Range Office, Puri were present in this meeting along with officials of ACCESS, members of newly formed farmers’ SHGs and a number  of local villagers.
Vedanta University Project of Anil Agarwal Foundation has been consistently trying to develop the villages in the project vicinity and improve the living condition of the villagers through a dedicated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy. SAFAL is yet another concrete step in that direction.

For further details, contact:
Kishore Chandra Das
Head, Communications
Email   kishorechandradas@gmail.com
Mobile No.:  91-9437012258

Ashis Kumar Acharya
Public Relations Officer
Email – ashis_pro@rediffmail.com
Mobile No.: 9937107444

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Top