IMPHAL, November 1: The first ever Banana festival of the state kicked off at Koso village situated under Phunyar sub-division of Ukhrul district, about 70 km from Imphal today.
The festival was inaugurated by the Sub-Divisional Officer of Phungyar sub-division, W. Chandrakumar at the Church ground of the village.
The programme was also attended by editor of ‘Aja’ daily Valley Rose, Koso village pastor-Athing, Koso village headman-Ramsing, East Sadai Resource Centre’s programme co-ordinator-Rungpam Kasar.
While delivering his chief guest speech, the SDO extended warm greetings on behalf of the Ukhrul DC who was supposed to be the chief guest of the function.
He said the festival will not only boost production of Bananas but also improve the economy of the villagers.
Banana has many uses while performing various traditional rituals of the general populace right from ceremonies related to a child’s birth to the death of a man, he asserted.
He further urged the people to organize the festival in a larger scale in the future and assured all possible help in doing so.
He further assured the villagers not to worry about where to sale their products in case of large scale production of bananas.
The SDO further assured to look in to the shortcomings of the sub-division, however he sought the people’s co-operation to do so whether be it in education, information or computer education,.
Aja editor, Valley maintained that it is the right thing that the villagers have come up with the idea of organizing the festival. She asserted that the variety of Bananas grown in this part of the state are of good quality and taste like no other Bananas besides it is grown on organic soil.
She also encouraged the villagers to increase their production to gradually promote the festival from village level to state level.
Altogether 50 stalls were opened during the festival displaying varieties of Bananas by the villagers.
