With the expected participation of around 2,000 workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Cheruvannur panchayat will venture into paddy farming in 300 acres of its kole land at Avalapandi on December 3.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will launch the project, which is claimed to be the first of its kind in the State where a panchayat is allowed to employ MGNREGS workers for farming. Mission Perambra, a local development project initiated with the cooperation of various local bodies in the Perambra Assembly Constituency, is supporting the venture.
Panchayat authorities said it took a long time to get the government’s permission for integrating the MGNREGS with the paddy cultivation project. Henceforth, all the grama panchayats will be able to make use of their local MGNREGS workforce for innovative paddy farming projects — an order in this regard is there on the State government portal.
Avalapandi, one of the biggest kole land areas in Kozhikode district, has remained fallow for decades. Most of the local landowners have been considering it as a useless property with no scope for productive ventures.
The new farming attempt comes to fruition with the support of the landowners. “The State government is ready to grant Rs.30,000 per hectare of land used for paddy farming under its supportive scheme, which will definitely be an encouragement for local landowners .
The local development fund of the panchayat too will be pooled in to make the undertaking a success,” says K.P. Biju, president of Cheruvannur panchayat. The panchayat has the support of the Agriculture Department, agro service technicians and organic farming experts to develop venture as a model farming project in kole land.
Investing around Rs.8 lakh, the panchayat has already purchased the required quantity of high-quality paddy seeds for the entire land. Based on the soil test results, different varieties of seeds will be considered for each plot.
