LANGIGARH: A mass marriage ceremony for 170couples was organized by Vedanta Foundation at Belmba near Lanjigarh on Sunday for bringing in the economically backward couples under social inclusion. The marriage rituals were conducted in traditional fashion, followed by official registration of the same.
There was no exchange of dowry or any ostentation. Inaugurating the function along with MLA Lanjigarh ,Chief Guest, K.K.Dave COO, Sesa Sterlite Ltd said, “Vedanta has been working towards bringing socio-economically backward people to the mainstream. The unique event, which saw 170 couples for getting their legal rights, will go a long-way in shaping up their future and that of their children.”
On his Speech Mr Balabhadra Majhi,MLA Lanjigarh praised Vedanta for doing such type of public oriented programs and told that this project will be a earmark project for others .
He told that this will benefit all the individuals of the community . He along with Zilla Parishad Chairperson Mrs Srimati Majhi, Block Chairman Sasmita Majhi, Sarapanch Pradeep Majhi met all the couples and told them about the benefits of projects.
Dr. Lona Nayak, CEO, Vedanta Foundation & Head CSR Sesa Sterlite ltd , said, “We have been doing several development activities in terms of Health,Education,Livelihood ,Infrastructure; Similarly this project will benefit the people at a large towards giving them a Social Inclusion along with facilitate for getting govt schemes. Many couples stay together without conducting the marriage rituals due to paucity of fund. Thus, without having a marriage certificate they get deprived of many Government schemes and their children face the problem in social inclusion.”
In order to reduce the cost of organizing a wedding ceremony, maximum couples below the poverty line get married without any rituals, which are not accepted by the society which further creates a problem in future. Likewise, their children are deprived of admission due to lack of identification of their parents. This initiative by the Foundation aimed at helping tribal community from being subjected to such kind of social inclusion, thus, helping them to join the main stream.
The villagers are from various villages such as various places of Lanjigarh, Muniguda and Kalyansingpur Block.Vedanta Foundation took the responsibility of all expenses of the mass marriage and gifted articles like marriage Silver jewelries, kitchen utensils, umbrella, watch and dress material for smooth beginning of the couples’ married life.
The couples will be gifted fixed deposits worth Rs.5, 000 in Postal. Around 5,000 people gathered to see the first of its kind event in the district. The list of guests included senior officials of Sesa Sterlite and dignitaries from media.
At last Khirod Behera –Sub Registrar Marriage section thanked Sesa Sterlite for such type of noble activities and advised to come with all related documents for Marriage certificates. Other dignitaries presented are Jagadish Benia-Vice Chairman,04 G.P Sarapanch,Jalaj Malpani-VP Finance,Koustav Kundu-Head HRD,kailsah Nayak-Tahasildar,Chitta Panigrahi,Ranjan Sharma,Srikant Bohidar,Binod Rath ,Sidhartha Behera ,Sridhar Pesnia, Dhan Majhi,Chnadra Pesnia,Manoj Mahapatra,Umesh Samal,Saraswati Munda etc.
The program was monitored by Tapaswini Ray along with the Staffs of CSR –PR team and teachers of Vedanta Foundation .Stage was managed by Balakrushna Rath with the support of Srimukh Agasty.
Vedanta Foundation is a Public Charitable Trust has built various development programs in the form of initiatives with a broad focus mainly on Education, Nutrition & Livelihood which focused on education among the school children, child nutrition, essential vocational training such as computer literacy, women empowerment & most critical among all being employment to jobless youth among others which happen to be National concerns of the country and furthermore a part of the country’s agenda for its Millennium Development Goal.