Bhubaneswar: CEO OMBADC, G Rajesh has urged to generate innovative projects on Skill Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement for the youth and families, particularly tribal communities residing in the mining districts.
CEO OMBADC, Shri Rajesh also advised to generate ideas for Mining areas restoration.
Ace Administrator Shri Rajesh was chairing a Brain Storming Workshop organized by Odisha Mineral bearing Areas Development Corporation (OMBADC) Bhubaneswar, in collaboration with STATE CAMPA Authority, Odisha 11 October, 2023.
Among top officials at least12 Divisional Forest Officers from the OMBADC supported mining districts of Odisha participated in the Brain Storming session.
Besides this, GM Administration, Sudakar Burgi, GM Operation, Jayant Kumar Das, GM Finance, Bhabani Prasad Dash and the experts from OMBADC PMU also participated in the session.
The major objective of the session was to generate innovative projects on Skill enhancement and Livelihood Improvement for the youth and families, particularly tribal communities residing in the mining districts.
The workshop was organised in the Conference Hall of PCCF Kendu leaf, Aranya Bhawan, Odisha.
Jayant Kumar Das welcomed all the participants and presented a brief of the session.
In his Opening remarks the CEO CAMPA, M Yogajayanand highlighted on the requirement of innovative proposals from the field level implementers that could contribute in skill enhancement and livelihood improvement of the people in the mineral bearing areas.
The CEO OMBADC outlined a brief journey over the different types of projects funded by OMBADC since 2019 and highlighted that out of the total investment of Rs. 18,000 Crore till date, of which only 4% of the total investment has been allocated to livelihood related projects.
Similar amount has also been allocated for Water conservation projects. Hence, he emphasised that the FE & CC department can play a major role in designing projects for mining area restoration.
The CEO concluded his speech saying that today’s brainstorming session has been organised with an expectation that new ideas and concepts can be generated through the discussion and encouraged all DFOs to participate actively in the session.
The participants were made aware about the different types of skill development, livelihood promotion and mining area restoration projects that were being implemented by the FE&CC departments, by other departments in coordination with the FE & CC department and independently by the SD&TE and other departments.
He also highlighted the four areas which can be taken up to design innovative proposals for mining area restoration like- Restoration, Reclamation, Rehabilitation and Remediation. Further some innovative models related to ground water recharge and livelihood improvement were also shared.
The presentation concluded with pointers and ideas for the participants like digitization of NTFPs, promotion of one district one NTFP product, skilling programmes for forest dwellers and development of Forest haats.
During the interactive session, the DFOs presented some new and ongoing projects which could be replicated at a larger scale viz., solar lights installation to curb man-animal conflicts in elephant zones, development of Eco-parks, restoration of mined areas, NTFP aggregation and storage, development of tomato and jackfruit clusters, development of forest haats, installation of cold storages for NTFP products, vermi- compost production and chara dehulling etc.
The ideation and deliberations made during the discussion by the DFOs was summarised and CEO OMBADC concluded the session with a request to the CEO, CAMPA to aggregate all the projects that are promising and viable; and to devise a complete proposal and submit to OMBADC for review.
