Elappully Panchayath in Palakkad District, the favourite among the 140-odd grama panchayats in the social reality show, Green Kerala Express, has bagged the first prize of Rs 1 crore. It is the revolutionary project, an integrated dairy farming project, that enabled Elappuly get this major achievement.

In second place came Akathethara panchayat of Palakkad with their nature conservation schemes, winning Rs. 50 lakh. In third place came Adaatu panchayat of Thrissur, with their natural methods of rice-farming, winning Rs.25 lakh.

In municipalities, Ottappalam came first winning Rs.50 lakh and Malappuram came second with Rs.25 lakh.

Chief Minister V S Achuthananadan and LSG Minister Paloli Mohammedkutty presented the awards to the winners. The winners were announced by actors Kalpana and Padmapriya.

Palakkad district shines with three grama panchayats, Kannadi, Elappuly and Akathethara reaching the final round, and two of them winning the prizes.Alappuzha district also managed to get three grama panchayats - Palamel, Cheriyanad and Kanjikkuzhi to the final round. Thrissur, Wayanad and Thiruvananthapuram had two panchayats each in the final while Malappuram, Kollam, and Kozhikode had one each.

All the 15 finalists at the reality show received an amount of Rs 10 lakh.

The finalists also included Koratty, Meenangadi, Mananthavadi, Nilambur, Kodiyathur, Aryanad, Kunnathukal and Sooranadu North.

The 15 finalists were selected on the basis of preliminary evaluation of developmental models, questionnaire marks, jury marks and SMS weightages. The jury also made site visits before finalising the winners.

Conceived by Doordarshan Kendra Assistant Station Director G. Sajan and C-DIT deputy director K. Mohan Kumar, the programme had won praise and appreciation of the parliamentary standing committee on Information and Broadcasting for being an excellent example of Development Journalism.