Tulunad’s Famous Pilivesha Artists to Get Insured: Here Are The Details

Tulunad’s Famous Pilivesha Artists to Get Insured: Here Are The Details

October 1: Pilivesha (tiger dance) is an integral part of Tulunadu’s culture. It is seen during most of the festivals in Tulunad like Krishnashtami, Dasara and many more.
The artists involved in the tiger dance need lot of practice sessions and acrobatics. Artistes who perform pili (tiger) dance in the district will get insurance and housing schemes, not through the government , but courtesy a foundation.
Several instances where the the artists meet with accidents have gone unnoticed. Considering this fact, a group of tiger dance patrons Pilinalike Pantha, has set up Pili Nalike Prathishtana to lend a helping hand to artistes, who are part of pilivesha teams.
Along with health insurance scheme, the prathishtana also has plans to construct houses for artistes, who depend on pilivesha for their livelihood.
The concept of setting up a foundation for the welfare of tiger dance artistes was planned by Congress leader Mithun Rai. He has been organising ‘pilinalike pantha’, an inter-district competition of tiger dance, in the city during Mangalore Dasara for the past five years. Rai also has plans to launch the foundation during the sixth annual tiger dance competition to be held on October 7. Mithun Rai said that the main objective of the foundation is to help those pilivesha artistes, who are poor. He also mentioned that the foundation will initially provide artistes and their family members with health insurance schemes and will provide houses for selected artistes in the next year.
He stated that charity initiatives will be taken up through this foundation. Dance competition will held and winning team in the competition this year will be awarded Rs 2.5 lakh, while the second and third prize winners will get Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 1 lakh, respectively. Along with this, winners in various other categories will be receiving Rs 20,000 each.