RURAL HOUSEHOLD’S SATISFACTION WITH ACCESS TO BASIC SERVICES IN LEPELLE-NKUMPI LOCAL MUNICIPALITY, LIMPOPO PROVINCE

The decline in public service satisfaction is one of the challenges that democratic South Africa faces. Many municipalities in South Africa have been experiencing difficulties due to poor service delivery. The South African local communities often express their dissatisfaction with municipal service delivery by means of protests. The purpose of this paper is to investigate rural household’s satisfaction with access to basic services in the Lepelle Nkumpi municipality, Limpopo province. This research adopted a descriptive survey research design and a standardised questionnaire was used to collect data from 80 participants who were selected randomly. The finding reveals that most of the sample households have access to the services rendered by the municipality, such as water, sanitation and electricity. The municipality has extended its provision of basic services to the rural households. The finding further shows that the majority of the sample households have expressed their dissatisfaction with service provision. The service delivery challenges faced by the municipality include frequent water cutoffs, aged water taps, stolen water pipes and non-existent refuse removal. The municipality is struggling with backlogs due to a shortage of resources, lack of capacity and improper targeting. It is recommended that the municipality should accelerate water provisions inside the dwelling/yard and there should be a mechanism to respond immediately to water faults as well as a need for regular monitoring and maintenance. The municipality should apply the electrical subsidy to indigent households, impose heavy fines on illegal connections and electrify new settlements. Regarding sanitation service, the municipality should provide sanitation by using quality material for building toilets and put in place a mechanism for regular monitoring and upgrading of dilapidated toilets. It is also suggested that the municipality should enhance its institutional capacity to address the aforementioned challenges to accelerate the provision of basic services to the rural households

In vitro regeneration of Brahmi (Bacopa monnieri (Linn.) Pennell) - an important medicinal herb through nodal segment culture

An efficient and cost effective in vitro plant regeneration protocol through nodalsegment culture was achieved in the medicinally important herb Bacopa monnieri (L.)Pennell, the Memory Plus plant through axillary shoot proliferation in Murashige and Skooge medium augmented with varying concentrations of 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP)1 - 5 mg/l. BAP at 2 mg/l was the most effective in multiple shoot induction and mean number of leaves, which gave an average of 17 shoots and 31.11 leaves, compared toother concentrations of the hormone tried in 35 days of culture. Regarding mean shoot length and number of nodes, basal MS giving 2.66 cm long shoots with 7.44 nodes is thebest. MS basal medium, even though not promoting shoot multiplication, gave highershoot length with elongated internodes. Healthy rooting of the in vitro developed shootswas achieved in half and full strength MS basal solid medium without the addition ofany hormones. The healthy and vigorous in vitro regenerated micro shoots wereseparated out and were hardened on transfer to plastic cups with sterile soil and sandand were successfully acclimatized ex vitro in pots with potting mixture under greenhouse conditions for 3 weeks. The survival rate was 100% and the plants establishedwell in green house resembled the mother plants in habitat without any morphological variations. The very simple and cost effective protocol developed can be used to produceelite stable clones for en masse propagation for the large-scale cultivation of this very important medicinal herb

In vitro propagation of Lesser Galangal (Alpinia calcarata Rosc.) - a commercially important medicinal plant through rhizome bud culture

An efficient protocol has been established for clonal propagation of Alpinia calcarata, a commercially important medicinal plant on Murashige and Skooge medium usingrhizome bud explants. Of the different concentrations of 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) andBAP in combination with different levels of kinetin, the best response of axillary shootproliferation was achieved in a combination of 1.5 mg/l of kinetin in combination with 0.5mg/l of BAP producing 13.6 shoots per explant in 6-8 weeks of culture followed by 2 mg/lkinetin and 0.5 mg/l BAP with an average of 6.2 shoot buds from each of the explants.Rooting of the shoots also occurred in the same medium in 3 weeks of subculture. Shootstransferred to half strength MS medium with 0.5 mg/l IBA was optimum for healthyrooting. The healthy in vitro rooted plants were hardened on plastic cups in sterile sand andwere transferred to pots containing potting mixture under green house conditions for 3-4weeks for acclimatization. The survival rate was 87-90% and the plants established well inthe field and developed rhizomes after 4-6 weeks of growth under shade house. Thisprotocol proves its utility for rapid propagation of A. calcarata, which can be exploited forpharmaceutical and commercial purpose

Not Available

Not AvailableArrowroot (Maranta arundinacea L.) is an underutilized tuber crop having great potential to be developed as a carbohydrate source and functional food. Molecular markers have proved to be valuable tools in the characterization and evaluation of genetic diversity within and between species and populations. ISSR markers provide more sophisticated analysis of genetic diversity, cultivar identification, population genetic structure and other events of evolutionary biology processes. The present work is aimed at the molecular characterization of the seven arrowroot (Maranta arundinacae L.) accessions maintained at ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute field genebank using 12 ISSR primers and to estimate the extent of diversity using the similarity index. DNA isolation was done using DNeasy® Plant Mini Kit method. Out of the 13 ISSR markers screened, 12 markers gave polymorphic bands in the accessions screened. The 12 ISSR markers produced a total of 124 bands across the seven samples of which 66 were polymorphic. The phylogenetic tree generated using UPGMA cluster analysis revealed that diversity exists in M. arundinacea unlike previously reported. The accessions formed two major clusters with two outliers in the grouping. The Cluster 1 consisted of two accessions i.e. Acc. 1 (M1) and Acc. 6 (M6) while Cluster 2 consisted of 3 accessions viz. Acc. 2, 4 and 3 (M2, M4 and M3). The two outliers that got separated were accessions 5 and 7 (M5 and M7). No duplicates were identified in the present study. The results indicated that the primers selected for the present study will be useful for future genetic diversity studies and would provide breeders with a genetic base for selection of diverse parents for crop improvement programmes in arrowroot.Not Availabl