THOUBAL, January 21: A 5-day long Workshop on “Occupational Health Hazards of the Farm Women” was inaugurated today under the project “An Innovative Intervention for Minimizing the occupational health Hazards of the farm women in Thoubal District, Manipur” at Samaram GP, Panchayat Ghar in Thoubal District.
The Workshop was organized by Smart Society, Manipur sanctioned by the National Council for Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC), Dept of Science & Technology, Govt of India.
Director IBSD Govt of India Prof Dinabhandu Sahoo, Samaram Gram Panchayat member N Rajensana, Smart Society Manipur general secretary E Brojendro Singh and Smart Society, Manipur consultant Debasis Choudhuri attended as chief guest, president and guest of honours repectively.
District Medical Officer ADC Chandel Dr Kh Nabakeshor District Medical Officer spoke at the inaugural function as resource person while Gurian Patrick from USA attended as a delegate member of the workshop.
Delivering the keynote address, Debasis said the workshop is an innovative project of which the main purpose is to minimize the health hazard of the farm women engaged in the different agricultural operations in Thoubal District.
Farm women play a crucial role in the agriculture sector but their contribution is never recognized, he said.
He elaborated they have to do different odd jobs like weeding, transplanting and spraying insecticides and pesticides of the different crops without taking any precautionary measures or personal protective equipment thereby exposing themselves to toxic effects of insecticides.
Farm Women also suffer from different types of related health hazards like physical hazard, biological hazard, chemical hazard and psychosocial hazard, he said, adding that the project is targeted to avail awareness on the health hazards to farm women of 20 selected villages of Thoubal district.
During the function, Dinabhandu Sahoo also released a Health Manual Book in connection with the project.