Livelihood opportunities for Irula families in Karamadai

Coimbatore: As many as 300 Irula families in Karamadai here will be provided with livelihood options such as fruit crops and livestock over the next five years using the tribal development fund of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).
The second phase of the Integrated tribal Development Programme for Irula Tribes in Karamadai Block, worth Rs 1.76 crore, was inaugurated online on Thursday. It will be implemented by Coimbatore-based forum Native Medicare Charitable Trust (NMCT).
Of the 300 families in tribal settlements, 250 have been given land to plant trees such as mango, coconut and cashew, and border crops such as teak and silk cotton, said NMCT managing trustee A S Sankaranarayanan. “They will also undertake soil conservation, manuring and water resource development activities such as setting up 11 borewells and four jack wells with pumpsets. Fifty families, which do not hold lands, will be provided sheep, cows, poultry, fish and also options for marketing and processing, along with setting up kitchen gardens,” he said.
The first phase was undertaken from 2011 to 2018 in Karamadai, said Sankaranarayanan. “Four hundred families were supported with farm activities and 300 with animal husbandry. Now, they have been marketing their produce. We have set up a rural haat, a market to sell their produce, at Tholampalayam in Karamadai.”