GUWAHATI, Nov 11 - The Nayantara Club Puja Samity has won the prestigious Prakriti Award 2015 (best eco-friendly Durga Puja of Guwahati), instituted by the Eco Tourism Society of North East.
The first runner-up is the Kahilipara Sarbajanin Sree Sree Durga Puja Udjapan Samity and the second runner-up is the Central Gotanagar Durga Puja Committee and .
This year, a total of 120 Durga Puja committees had registered for the competition. Out of them, 85 had eco-friendly idols and the rest had eco-friendly decorations.
The key parameters were not only eco-friendly idols and decorations, but issues like minimum electricity consumption and noise pollution, and clean surroundings were given more emphasis by the jury for the award.
According to Dr Chandan Goswami, professor, Department of MBA, Tezpur University, and one of the jury members, �It is the constant effort and dynamic thinking of the Nayantara Club members to showcase the concept of a rural lifestyle to visitors that helped the committee bag the award.� Dr Goswami added that if such themes could be highlighted more, it would definitely help in attracting more tourists during the Durga Puja festival, boosting the economy of the State.
Various themes like �Make in India,� �Kaziranga National Park,� �Migratory Birds,� etc., highlighted this year�s Durga Puja celebration.
It may be mentioned that the main objective behind the Prakriti Award is to create awareness regarding eco-friendly initiatives and to make Assam a tourist-friendly destination. Since 2010, the percentage of eco-friendly idols has increased, which is a reflection of the people�s interest and concern towards environment preservation.
Nayantara Club�s theme was Aadorxo Gaon (Ideal Village), which successfully depicted the rural lifestyle of Assam. The theme was adopted to introduce rural culture to the city people.
According to a functionary of the puja committee, �Such themes will make the youths familiar with village life in our State.� There was a pond, a dheki and the idol was dressed up in traditional hand-woven mekhela chadar. The jewellery, too, was traditional. Among the visitors, children were specially fascinated to see the village life of the State. Thus, it also served an educational purpose. Senior citizens, too, praised the theme and the way village life was portrayed, right from farming to fishery.
