Folk Art is the Most Effective Medium in Creating Awareness: 5T Chairman

Bhubaneswar: Traditional folk art and culture is the life and future of a nation. There is no other medium as effective as folk art in creating awareness, said 5T and Nabin Odisha Chairman Kartik Pandian here on Friday.

While attending the state level conference of block and district Lokakala Samiti Members held at Lokaseva Bhawan on the advice of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Pandian said, “In order to make the culture dynamic, we have to attract the youth towards folk art. If folk art is to survive, artists should improve. For this, he informed that the government will give good news to the artists in the next 3 to 4 months.

As Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is an art lover, he always emphasized on the development of artists, the 5T Chairman said.

He further said that the Chief Minister has decided to empower the artists’ association in a similar framework as Mission Shakti has become a social movement and women have become self-reliant. All associations will be included in 5-T and block and district level association offices will be opened.

Artists have a major role to play in building Nabin Odisha, he said.

Narrating his experience as Collector of Ganjam district, Pandian said when the number of AIDS patients in Ganjam district was high 15 years ago, there was a need to create widespread awareness among the people of the district. He said that the role of folk art was admirable for this and its results were obtained within two years.

A souvenir was launched advising the artistes to create awareness through folk art.

On the occasion, Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Odia Language, Literature and Culture Department Sujata Rout Karthikeyan, Director Dilip Routrai, Special Secretary Madhusudan Das and other senior officials were present.