The Annual meeting of Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram was held at Jashpur Nagar from February 25 to March 1. The Karyakari Mandal of the Kalyan Ashram met on February 25 while the Pratinidhi Mandal met on February 26 in which representatives from all over the country participated. The meeting was inaugurated by Kalyan Ashram president Shri Jagdevram Oraon and vice presidents Shri Moren Singh Purti and Shri Roop Singh Bhil. Shri Gunvant Singh Kothari, general secretary, presented the annual report.
The Karyakari Mandal adopted a resolution supporting the rights of Vanvasis living in reserve forests or in the areas of Tiger Reserves. The Mandal urged the Government of India to execute the decisions taken in Forest Dwellers Act 2006. The Mandal also appreciated the allocation of Rs 8000 crore for the development of Arunachal Pradesh and expressed serious concern over the Bangladeshi infiltration in Tirap and Changlang districts in Arunachal Pradesh. The Mandal decided to organise an all India Mahila Sammelan in the last week of December this year in Ranchi, Jharkhand. More than 2000 female delegates are expected to participate in the Sammelan. The all India workers meet would be organised in the third week of September this year in Bangalore in which more than 600 delegates are expected to participate. Training camps for the grassroot workers and meetings of the state-level workers would be organised from May 2008 to January 2009. The organisers of the Eklavya Khel Kud Prakalp will meet near Siliguri from April 24 to 26 this year.
The meeting concluded with the speech of Shri Jagdevram Oraon appealing to expand the organisational work in rest of the districts like Leh, Laddakh, Doda in J&K, Lahol, Spiti, Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh, Bomdila, Khonsa, Tirap in Arunachal Pradesh, Garhwal, Chamoli, Kathgodam in Uttarakhand, Mon, Zunheboto, Phek in Nagaland, Ukhrul and Karong in Manipur, Dharampur and Ooty in Tamil Nadu, Khammam, East Godawari and West Godawari, Srikakularn and Sri Salem areas in Andhra Pradesh.
According to the annual report, the Kalyan Ashram is having its village development projects in 263 villages and a total of 2715 wells, tanks, check dams and stenches were also constructed under the water management project. Successful experiments of 73 wormy compost projects are going on in 12 states. There are 895 self-help groups in the country. The agriculture development activities are going on in 129 villages. Honey production, sewing centre, wood and cane work, weaving centres are also being run at 64 places in the country. At present 13,505 service projects are being run at 9584 places in the Vanvasi areas. The beneficiaries of education projects are 1,02,045 and the Kalyan Ashram health workers have treated 5,40,933 patients during the last one year.
(FOC)
