Front Page

Project to create database of village

PUDUKOTTAI: The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has mapped resources available at Aththani in the district, using Global Positioning System (GPS) as part of its endeavour to create a comprehensive database on agriculture, water resource, irrigation, health and sanitation.

The project has been taken up under an environmental awareness programme currently under way in the village.

The foundation’s village resource centre, headquartered at Annavavasal in the district, has recently completed the GPS mapping of each and every household besides institutions, tanks, overhead-tanks, land-holding pattern and, in the process, also conducted a comprehensive survey on the economic status of bread-winner of each family.

The GPS data, together with the survey, aimed at preparing a profile of the socio-economic status of the village, the villagers’ needs and exploring the possibility of augmenting their income through rural-specific vocations, with a thrust on creating environmental awareness, said the Project Co-ordinator of the Knowledge Resource Centre, R. Rajkumar.

This ‘participatory rural appraisal’ programme, being implemented in co-ordination with the Aththani village panchayat, to start with, would shortly take up solid waste management.

The entire village panchayat had been divided into 10 major hamlets. Villagers had already been sensitised to segregation, at source, of garbage into bio-degradable and non-degradable waste materials.

Training would be imparted to the villagers on preparing the eco-friendly compost and setting up kitchen gardens and use the compost for the gardens.

The village panchayat president K. Paramasivam had volunteered to donate dust-bins to all households, Gandhi Jayanthi Day.

The project would be completed in six months, Mr. Rajkumar added.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu