Bhubaneswar, July 20 (UNI) Prominent tribal woman Padma Shree awardee Kamala Pujari, from tribal-dominated Koraput district in Odisha, known for promoting organic farming, passed away at SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack on Saturday.
Hospital sources said she had a kidney-related ailment and had dialysis on Friday night. However, she passed away following a cardiac arrest in the early hours of Saturday.
She was 76 years old.
She was awarded Padma Shree in 2019 for her significant contributions to the field of agriculture.
Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi expressed his profound grief over the demise of Kamala Pujari and announced she would be cremated with full state honour.
In her condolence message, the Chief Minister said Pujari was an extraordinary agriculturist whose contribution towards organic farming will be remembered forever.
Kamala Pujari, a tribal lady of Patraput Village, 15 km from Jeypore, near Boipariguda, in Odisha’s Koraput District, preserved local paddies.
Interested in traditional farming, she learned the basic techniques from the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation at Jeypore and contributed a lot in the field of organic farming.
In her lifetime, she preserved hundreds of indigenous varieties of paddy. Conserving paddy and promoting organic farming was not a pastime for her.
After getting into this, she mobilised people, arranged group gatherings, and interacted with people to shun chemical fertilisers.
She motivates many people to join with her and knocks door to door from village to village. Her efforts were successful, and farmers in Patraput village and neighbouring villages gave up chemical fertilisers and adopted organic farming for a better harvest and soil fertility. She was also an inspiration for upcoming generations.
Without having any basic education, Kamala Pujari has preserved as many as 100 types of paddy to date.
She had collected endangered and rare types of seeds such as paddy, turmeric, tili, black cumin, mahakanta, phula, and ghantia.

She won the Equator Initiative Award in 2002 in Johannesburg. The Odisha government honoured her as the best woman farmer in 2004. She was also awarded the national award "Krusi Bisarada Samman" in New Delhi.
She held the unique distinction of being the first tribal woman to be included in the list of members of the Odisha State Planning Board. She was made a member of a five-member planning team in March 2018.
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