The mood of festival, celebration and enchantment caught the sites of Bentkar and Nimapara on 23rd & 24th of October as Gramotsava 2010 made foray into the villages. Gramotsava, a two day rural marketing fair, is a flagship event organized annually by Rural managers’ Association of XIMB (RMAX). The fair attempts to facilitate corporate giants to promote their products / services in the rural areas.
The fair was supported by Unitech wireless (East) Pvt. Ltd. (Uninor) as the main sponsor along with associate sponsor Mahindra Tractors, Co-sponsor Ujjivan Microfinance, Stall sponsor Tata Motors, energy partner Onergy, media partner The Telegraph and knowledge partner Mart Rural Solutions.
The fair attracted a huge crowd from the villages. Apart from the products promotion, RMAX in association with Social Responsibility Cell of XIMB, utilized the opportunity to create awareness regarding health, hygiene and sanitation among children of the villages. Children visiting the fair were enlightened in a captivating manner through games and quizzes related to health issues and free distribution of healthcare products such as medicinal soaps, shampoo etc. Informative leaflets and posters were also distributed.
Visit of faculty members is an integral part of Gramotsava every year. Prof. Shambu Prasad, Prof. S. S. Singh, Prof. P K Mohanty and Prof Jeevan J Arakal visited the SRC stall. They also participated in an awareness generating game of Hit-Da-Coz, a game involving throwing a ball to the symbolic representations of the primary causes of four major communicable diseases in rural India followed by a quiz.
Visit of faculty members is an integral part of Gramotsava every year. Prof. Shambu Prasad, Prof. S. S. Singh, Prof. P K Mohanty and Prof Jeevan J Arakal visited the SRC stall. They also participated in an awareness generating game of Hit-Da-Coz, a game involving throwing a ball to the symbolic representations of the primary causes of four major communicable diseases in rural India followed by a quiz.
Faculty members deeply appreciated this initiative of SRC. In the words of Prof. Sudhanshu Sekhar Singh, “Every year Malaria takes away some 50,000 human lives in Orissa and one of the biggest factors for the mortality rate. Hopefully this step of SRC would help in reducing the figure drastically”. Prof C. Shambu Prasad laid emphasis on the institutionalization of the process and recommended long term partnership with bodies like National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Orissa Primary Education Programme Authority (OPEPA).
