Technology Week 2009 @ ICAR,Gangtok

Gangtok,Nov24 : Krishi Vigyan Kendra, ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region, Sikkim Centre, Ranipool, has organized Technology Week 2009, on the theme “Farmers’ empowerment and livelihood improvement through technology based support” at Ranipool, from November 23 to 29.
The inaugural programme of the Technology Week 2009 on November 23 started in the morning with felicitation of Chief Guest Mr. Bhim Dungel, Mininster for Forest, Environment, Science & Technology, Govt. of Sikkim, and other dignitaries. The Chief Guest inaugurated the programme by lightening lamp. Dr. H. Rahman, Joint Director, ICAR Sikkim Centre, in his welcome address highlighted the activities of ICAR and the agenda for Technology Week by the KVK.
Sustainable livelihood in hills could be achieved by focusing on the improvement of livelihood option of household and harnessing local mountain resources which are compatible with the mountainous agro-climatic condition. Though more than 65 per cent of the total population of the state depends entirely on agriculture, rarely they generate surplus income after meeting their daily requirements. Improved farm technologies are hardly reached to the farming community. Due to non availability of suitable local resource based technology, most of the farmers are still practising the traditional farming methods, thereby putting their livelihood condition at stake.
The Technology week aims to provide awareness among the farming community of the East Sikkim through Crop Seminar followed by farmer-scientist interaction to provide a common platform where farmers get the opportunity to share their experiences, express their problems and get instant solutions in consultation with researchers, developmental experts, implementing agencies (state line departments), bankers, marketing agencies, cooperatives and other stakeholders.
A quiz competition was held on the day for the farmers to get exposed and clarified on some of the common questions related to various fields. The winners were awarded with inputs/ demonstration kits sponsored by different organizations along with certificates, it is informed.
An agricultural exhibition is arranged by different organizations to showcase the various activities, which provide an opportunity to the farmers to enrich their knowledge through varied exposure to different modern technologies/products in the field of agriculture and allied fields relevant to agro-ecological situation of the region.
More than 150 farmers from different villages of East Sikkim district are participating in the programme who are selected from the village level SHG/ Farmers’ Club / Farmers’ Interest Group (FIG) of the district. (With KVK input)
On the occasion, Chief Guest and other dignitaries released the 1st edition of KVK Newsletter, eight number of technical folders and one Technology Bulletin under Technology Mission-I in the cause of the farming communities as well as other stakeholders. Chief Guest also distributed technology kits to selected farmers, inaugurated the farmers exhibition and visited stalls in the exhibition, the release informed.

Sikkim CM Chamling inaugurated Block Administrative Centre

pic:SikkimReporter

Pakyong,Nov14 : Chief Minister Dr. Pawan Chamling on Friday, November 13, inaugurated Block Administrative Centre at Parakha, 13 kilometers from Pakyong. Minister RMDD Mr. CB Karki, Area MLA Mr. Laxuman Lepcha, Minister of Forest and Tourism Mr. Bhim Dhungel, Minister of Commerce & Industries Miss Neeru Sewa, Vice Chairman State Planning Commission Mr. Sanchaman Limboo, SDF party workers, zilla panchayats, gram panchayats, sub-divisional officers and large number of local people were present at the inauguration ceremony.
Chief Minister in his address urged the people of the area to take benefits of the BAC Office. He said, “The present SDF government believes in decentralization of power to the rural areas and it is one of the measures through which rural people may do their official work in their villages without any expense of time and money.” He said, the SDF government is making every effort to make all the poor people of Sikkim prosperous,
master, and producers for which the government has given many benefits and schemes but still the rural people in villages are poor due to the habits of taking benefits from the government for granted.
He urged the people “to think positive and work in unity” to make Sikkim progressive and peaceful. He said the present government wants to make the people of Sikkim skillful and hardworking like the people of China and Japan. In order to upgrade all the villages of Sikkim and the economic standard of its peoples he urged them to come forward with planning to work in dairy, horticulture, agriculture etc. The government will help them by providing the resources and technical advices, he assured.
He also announced opening Livelihood School in all the 32 constituencies of Sikkim for the dropouts, educated unemployed people which is first of its kind in the whole
Country. He said the world is facing unemployment and all cannot get government jobs but the present government is determined to create opportunities for the unemployed through which they can earn more than the employed people. He reminded the people about the Chief Minister’s Scholarship for the best of the rural students to study in best schools of the country and outside the country and urged the students to take benefits from it.
RMD Minister Mr. Karki, area MLA Mr. Lepcha and Secretary RMDD Mr. Anil Ganeriwal also addressed the people.
The Block Administrative Centre at Parakha is built at a cost of Rs.1.28 crore by the contractor Mr. Palden Thendup Bhutia of Development area Gangtok. The BAC Pakyong will be shifted to Parakha and will be operative within this month, informed the Block Development Officer, Pakyong, Mr. Shyam Pradhan. Before inaugurating the BAC Parakha, Chief Minister inaugurated a “Maney” of late Pathing Phulzong Rinpoche at Machong monastery.

RMDD Minister buckles up for Ansari visit

GANGTOK, October 27: Keeping in view the visit of the Vice President of India Hamid Ansari at Ban Jhakri Falls Park at Ranka, few kilometres away from here, the State Rural Management and Development Department Minister CB Karki today visited the park to take stock of the arrangement for the visit.
As per the scheduled itinerary, the Vice President is likely to visit Ban Jharki Falls October 28.
While interacting with the concerned officials and the workers today, Mr. Karki ensured that every possible effort would be made to accord a warm welcome to the Vice President of India.
The entire departmental team has been involved in the beautification and the cleaning of the park.
Mr. Karki also visited Sanskritik Gram located at Ranka today

All Sikkim Self Help Group Exhibition

Gangtok,October07 : Sikkim Rural Development Agency (SRDA) under the Rural Management and Development Department (RMDD), Govt. of Sikkim, has organized an Exhibition-cum-Sales of products by All Sikkim Self Help Group (SHG) which was inaugurated on Tuesday at old children park to continue till 15th October.
C B Karki, Minister RMDD was chief guest at the inauguration. Dorjee Namgyal, MLA, Gangtok, Phituk Tshering, Sangha MLA, former Minister Somnath Poudyal, Anil Ganerwala, Secretary, RMDD, among others, were present.
Total 42 stalls of handloom and handicraft, food, vegetable items from all over Sikkim are displaying their products. Mr. Karki said, the aim of the programme is to enable the local youth to be self sustained by giing them the idea of marketing the products. Since the formation of SDF government, emphasis is being given on facilities for the rural people, he said. “State government is giving capacity building training to all educated unemployed youth whereby number of SHGs has increased”, he said. He added, “The aim of the government is to develop the SHG from State level to National Level”. He urged the local youths “to fulfill the dream

Rs. 20 crores for Connecting Rural Roads in Sikkim

Gangtok,September 22:The Ministry of Rural Development has released grant in aid worth Rs. 200,00,00,000 (Rs. 20 crores) to Sikkim for construction of rural roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).The sum is the first installment of Phase-VII of grants in aid to the Sikkim Rural Roads Development Agency. SRRDA is the state level autonomous agency for implementation of works under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in the state.
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana is a 100 % centrally sponsored scheme to provide road connectivity in the rural areas of the country. PMGSY envisages connectivity to all habitations with a population of 500 persons and above in the rural areas and about 250 persons and above in respect of the hill states, tribal areas and desert areas through good and all weather roads.

Rural Industry Service Centre organise Awareness camp

Gangtok,September20 :: A day long awareness camp on Rural Industry Service Centre (RISC) and Product Development, Design Intervention and Packaging (PRODIP) was held on September 19 at Community Centre, Sangadorjee block, West Sikkim, which was organized by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). Mr. D.K. Gurung, President, West District NGOs’ Federation was the chief guest and those present were S. Das, Supervisor (Agro based Food Processing Industries), KVIC, S. Mondal, Research Executive, Regional Resource Centre (RRC), Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE), Saru Subba, Vice president, West District NGOs’ Federation, Kalpana Gurung, Secretary, Sangadorjee Gram Panchayat and Kabita Lepcha, Vice President, Sangadorjee Gram Panchayat.
Mr. Das in his inaugural address spoke on role and functions of KVIC and awakened the participants about RISC and PRODIP. He assured that necessary support will be provided in this area.
Earlier, Mr. Mondal motivated the participants. “Huge scopes are there on cluster development and Rural Business Hub on ginger based product and broom binding”, he said. The chief guest Mr. D.K. Gurung urged the participants to come forward and work together to implement the schemes soon to raise economy of the people who are engaged in ginger cultivation and broom binding.

SBI adopts a Sikkim Village

GANGTOK, September 18: In pursuance of its village adoption scheme, the State Bank of India, Temi Branch on September 15 adopted Ifaltar Village of Temi Tarku area as ‘SBI Ka Apna Gaon’.
At a colourful function organised at Ifaltar Lower Primary School, PT Sherpa, Regional Manager, SBI formally declared Ifaltar village as ‘SBI Ka Apna Gaon’ in presence of BS Pant, the area MLA, who attended the function as guest of honour, informs a press release.
“The objectives of SBI are to adopt Ifaltar as ‘SBI Ka Apna Gaon’ is to achieve cent percent ‘financial inclusion’ with the goal of raising all BPL families above the poverty line, meeting the credit requirements of all eligible households of Ifaltar Village, promoting SHG, Farmers Club in the village and help achieve cent percent literacy in the adopted village,” said Branch Manager of SBI Temi Branch.
A large number of villagers including Panchayat representatives and Self Help Groups of the area attended the programme. The SHGs of the area presented their cultural programme which was appreciated by all who attended the programme.
SBI, Temi Branch also announced the adoption of two girl child - Dibya Chettri and Manisha Sharma of Ifaltar village. The adopted girl child will receive the financial assistance from SBI for their studies up to class XII, the release added.

Sikkim promotes traditional sports

Gangtok, Sep 17(ANI): In order to preserve the essence of its culture, Sikkim is trying to revive its age-old traditional sports like archery, and bamboo fight, which are an indispensable ingredient of the culture of the state.

In order to preserve the indigenous culture, which is being taken over by sports like Mountain Biking, Trekking, River Rafting and Yak Safari, people residing in Kyonsa village organized various cultural events organized by Kyonsa Samaj organizing committee.
Our main aim is to popularize the old system of sports. We mainly focus on Footballs, Volleyball and Archery. Our endeavor is to keep the traditional old style of sports in our rural areas. And the most important thing is to entertain the public," said Sonam Bhutia, member of Kyonsa Samaj organizing committee.

A large number of people turned out to witness and take part in the event.
"As a young Sikkimese what I feel is that such rural sports encourage and bring out the best in the villagers who come out from various remote areas. All Sikkim people, they come out and gather for the big occasion. The rural sports bring back the old charm feeling. It preserves the dying out traditional sports," said Anand Lepcha, a local.
Such initiatives will go a long way in preserving the identity of the people of Sikkim and will ensure that the future generation remains connected to its traditions.

(ANI)

Sikkim MInisters & MLA in Hyderabad for Training

Hyderabad, Aug 28 The Sikkim Government has decided to organise regular training-cum-orientation for the elected representatives on the latest trends in rural development.

This comes after a training-cum-orientation course on 'Rural Development Programmes and Decentralisation' was held on August 27 and 28 at the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) here, an official release said today.

A 16-member delegation comprising C B Karki, Minister for Rural Management and Development, D B Thapa, Minister for Urban Development and Housing Development and Neerla Sewa, Minister for Commerce and Industries and Panchyat Raj and 12 MLAs of the newly-constituted Sikkim Assembly attended the programme.

Anil Ganeriwala, Secretary, Rural Management and Development, Government of Sikkim, accompanied the delegation, the release said.

NIRD Director General B K Sinha, his Deputy K N Kumar and D S Gangwar, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Rural Development interacted with the participants.

The programme covered several important programmes of the Rural Development Ministry such as NREGS, and sessions were taken by the eminent academicians and developmental administrations on the latest trends in implementation of rural development programmes and decentralisation.

RMDD training

Gangtok,August26: MIS training on State Rural Household Census 2009 training by RM&DD (HQ) was held at State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD), Jorethang, on 24th August. The objective was to brief the trainees about data validation and data entry at the block level. Several queries were discussed and resolved during the course. Hands-on training on data entry was also imparted to the Swan Network Assistants from the South and West districts.

The resource persons for the training were Ms. Suju Subba, Jr. Research Fellow, Mr. Anjee Lepcha, Jr. Research Fellow and Dr Sandeep Tambe (Additional Secretary, RM&DD). The training was attended by all Panchayat Inspectors, Field Facilitators and Swan Network Assistants from South and West Districts. (IPR)