KENDRAPARA: NIHAR Ranjan Beura (50), an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus of Dumuka village in Kendrapara, is perhaps the only highly-qualified person in the district to have won the three-tier Panchayat election. He had entered the poll fray as an Independent candidate for the post of Panchayat Samiti member in Dumuka gram panchayat under Marsaghai block. He won the post by defeating his nearest rival by a thin margin of 27 votes. On Saturday, he was officially declared as the Panchayat Samiti member of Dumuka.
After finishing his schooling from a high school in Marsaghai and Intermediate Science in Kendrapara college, Nihar did MTech in Industrial Engineering and Management from IIT, Kharagapur. After quitting a corporate job in the US in 2012, Nihar Ranjan Beura (50) had opened a dairy farm in his village with 35 Jersey cattle three years back. He employed local villagers in maintenance of the farm and sold milk within the village. “I decided to fight the election to bring in more development to my village and panchayat. Some candidates, who were in the race for the post, used money to win votes but I had depended entirely on people’s faith in me,” said an elated Beura.
Currently, his farm employs 12 villagers of Dumuka and has 52 cattle, generating 300 litres of milk every day. “The objective to set up a dairy farm was to make available pure milk to my villagers at a reasonable price. Besides, I have been able to provide employment to some families in the farm”, Beura said. The farm is being run on no-loss-no-profit basis. The returns from the milk sold is spent on rearing the cows, he added.
Beura drew inspiration from New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who, he says, was a junior to him in IIT-Kharagpur. “We stayed in the same hostel but I was never a member of any political party then. I was inspired by Kejriwal because he sacrificed his Indian Revenue Service job to become the Chief Minister of Delhi. I want to help youths to become entrepreneurs instead of being job seekers, The change will not happen unless educated and qualified people join politics”, he added.
In his free time, Nihar provides education counselling to poor students.