Koraput: A village in Odisha's Koraput district has become the torch bearer towards real community development through community participation.
While people are seen fighting for an inch of land, locals at Kauguda village in Dasmantpur block of Koraput district have set an example by sharing portions of cultivable land to the landless for generating a smile on their faces as well.
With the help of Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD) and Odisha Agro Industries Corporation, the locals are able to cultivate various vegetables all year round by lifting water from the stream flowing in the lower part of the village.
Adopting an integrated farming system, the villagers grow various vegetables in the fields around their village, and their mutual understanding makes them unique. Madan Gadba, a resident of this village, said that around 45 families of Gadba tribe are living in this village and all of them rear cows, cattle, goats and poultry to make life better. He said that by maintaining the traditional way of maintaining social harmony, each family takes the cows, goats and sheep from the entire village to graze in a systematic rotation set by the village.
Besides, everyone has brought a new identity to the entire village by using the organic manure prepared by collecting all the dung.
However, all 45 families in the village do not have agricultural land, but the villagers have not disappointed anyone. They have given opportunity to the landless families to cultivate some part of their land free of charge.
Bhuvan Gadba, the young man of the village, went two steps ahead of everyone in this direction and cultivated various vegetables on half of his land while sharing the rest half with his fellow villager Sam Gadba to cultivate the land free of charge.
While Bhuvan is happy doing farming himself, he told Sam to cultivate half of his land so that no one would be sad because of the lack of farming land. Sam said that he was happily living in the fields like others.
Jagdananda, the founder of CYSD and a prominent social worker from Bhubaneswar, said that the vision of humanity through such a partnership in the village has become a unique example for the whole world.
