Mysuru: ‘Orange Day’, the Zilla Panchayat’s healthy eating campaign took wings at at the Maharaja College on Thursday. The Public campaign programme was organised as part of Environment Day celebration by Zilla Panchayath jointly with Department of Food and Civil Supplies at Maharaja College.
The programme was designed to raise awareness of healthy eating.School children who sat the entrance of the hall, displaying placards and posters of the importance of eating well. The slogan ‘Our Food, Our Future’ was evident througout the programme.The general public who visited the stalls were asked to sport some orange in their clothing, in support of the campaign of the Zilla Panchayat’s initiative.
The Zilla Panchayat, Food and Civil Supplies Department, Health and Family Welfare Department, Horticulture Department, the Consumer Affairs Department had all put up stalls on the occasion. The stalls displayed various ways to use cow’s milk, make a wholesome meal, making use of new age technology in agriculture. Raising awareness of consumer rights was the aim of the numerous stalls.
Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies Dinesh Gundu Rao said that arrangements have been made to distribute Ragi along with the present 3 kgs of rice to selected districts in the State under “Annabhagya Scheme”.
He was speaking after inaugurating the campaign, “Our food Our future”. He said, “under the proposed scheme there was a huge demand to distribute food grains to people based on regional food habits. As a step the government has decided to provide ragi. In the year 2014 15 the government has taken 13. 80 lakh tonnes of ragi from farmers. Ragi is a good protein food and this will also entertain the farmers to grow more Ragi. Mal nutrition is the biggest challenge the state is facing today. Several reports have said that Ragi is more delicious than Jawar”.
Further he said that since the green revolution led by Indira Gandhi we have become independent. “Now there is need to conserve these food. Storage facility must be enhanced and examined. Several fact finding reports have said that most of the times food go waste during the production and reaching it to the farmers. It is also been observed that many storage centres are defunct and not functioning. This must be taken care off”, he added
Reacting to the media queries on the Yoga day celebrations, he said that he will take part at the Yoga celebration as it helps the people to keep fit. But this should not be considered on achievement lines.
MLA Vasu, Karnataka State Open University Vice Chancellor Prof. MG Krishnan , SP Abhinav Khare, Deputy Director of Food and Civil Supplies K Rameshwarappa, Amshi Prasanna Kumar, Zilla Panchayat President Dr. Pushpa Amarnath were present at the event.
