Udupi: Belle Village BJP Committee encourages agriculture through teamwork

By Eugene DSouza
Bellevision Media Network

Udupi, 19 Jun 2016: At a time when agricultural activities have taken a back seat and scores of cultivable paddy fields are lying vacant due to lack of people to cultivate the land or exorbitant labour and other cost, Belle BJP  Committee under the leadership of president Rajendra Shetty have shown the way how the tradition of paddy cultivation could be continued and improved. Belle village BJP Committee along with BJP members of Belle Grama Panchayat and volunteers undertook to cultivate the fertile Kmballa paddy field  belonging to Belle Melmane Vasantha Shetty.

 

The volunteers, including women, gathered at the Kamballa paddy field on Sunday, 19 June 2016 at 10.30 am and started transplanting paddy saplings donated by Kurdai Ramachandra Prabhu, retired Headmaster of STP Higher  Primary School, Bantakall and a progressive farmer, Ganapati Nayak and Umesh Nayak from Ankudru, Moodubelle and Felix from Kattingeri.

 

 

The programme of transplantation of saplings was attended by Rajendra Shetty, Gururaj Bhat, Devdas Hebbar, Sashidhar Wagle, Sudhakar Poojary, Krishna Achari and Udaya Shetty representing Belle Melmane family.

 

According to Devdas Hebbar, this is a venture of Belle Village BJP Committee to encourage paddy cultivation through voluntary community work so that others also can cultivate the fields that are left barren for various reasons. The Kamballa field of Belle Melmane has been under continuous cultivation. As previous cultivator expressed his unwillingness to continue cultivation, Belle Village BJP Committee requested the owner of the Kamballa field, Belle Melmane Vasanth Shetty to allow them to cultivate the field for which he readily agreed.

 

Gururaj Bhat said that instead of organizing rural games like ‘Kesarda Gaddhe Gobbulu’, it would be better if the volunteers undertook cultivation of such fields voluntarily. He further said that after the harvest, the hey from the paddy will be donated to Nilavara Go Shala (Cow shelter) and paddy would be used to meet the expenses of the cultivation and harvesting and remaining paddy will be distributed to the poorer families of the village.