Sri. Suresh Kumar Panda
Recipient, Shambhavi Puraskar 2015
Semiliguda, Koraput, Odisha
Sri. Suresh Kumar Panda is a young development professional who has been working as a Team Leader at Tagore Society for Rural Development Odisha in Koraput district since 2002. His capabilities as an emerging social catalyst came to the forefront in 2008 when he started the implementation of the Odisha Tribal Empowerment & Livelihood Programme – a program by SC&ST Development Department, Government of Odisha.
Starting with a few villages, in a short frame of time Sri Panda built and strengthened ten Village Cluster Development Committees and imparted them with skills to execute water conservation activities and livelihood perspective plans. Thereafter, increased engagement with villagers led to successful ventures on promotion of livelihood such as WADI programme, backyard kitchen garden, commercial vegetable cultivation through drip irrigation, pisciculture, backyard poultry and goat rearing.
Sri Panda worked diligently to add a range of other activities in the area of health, water sanitation and natural resource management thereby providing holistic solutions to the villages. This led to several tribal villages taking ownership of their upliftment by adopting building of household toilets, water harvesting structures and a healthy sanitary practice in their day to day life.
Sri Panda’s passion and vision fuelled by a desire to help mankind has led him to go beyond the expectations of his job. His leadership capabilities motivated his team and paved the path for systemic implementation leading to holistic solutions. His ability to communicate a vision inspired beneficiaries to take ownership of the change and his perseverance resulted in sustainable impact.
The Bansidhar & Ila Panda Foundation has the privilege of recognizing Sri Suresh Kumar Panda as an excellent and innovative social catalyst for enabling thousands of tribal from remote villages of Koraput district to improve their quality of life and confers upon him the Shambhavi Puraskar.
We wish him all the best for his journey ahead.