Sundergarh: At a time when humans are snapping long-standing bond with trees, a small village in Sundergarh named Jhurimal has set an example by creating a mini forest with only herbal plants.
The medicinal garden titled ‘Sanjeevani Vatika’ acted as a perfect presentation to today’s generation.
During Covid outbreak, people went back to Ayurveda age and started consuming herbal juice and medicines to keep themselves fit. The residents of Jhurimal used the lockdown period to create a garden having only herbal plants on only three acres of land.
Villagers said that they created it out of their labour and love of trees. With no government assistance, they took the challenge to create the medicinal garden on an arid land.
The projects started with only 50 kinds of trees and now it crossed 100. The garden now contains plants like Harida (Terminalia chebula or Black Myrobalan),Bahada (Terminalia bellirica), Amla, Kumkum, Arjun, Long pepper, Black pepper, Ashoka tree (Saraca asoca), clove and many more.
The villagers aim to make the ‘Sanjeevani Vatika’ an educational center in future as they take care of it every day on rotation baisis.
“As the medicinal plants are on the verge of extinct, we took the initiative to start planting only herbal trees. Initially, we planted only 40. 50 plants and now the number reached over 100. This is the collective efforts of our villagers with no support from the government, said Dilip Kumar Patel, a local.
“We are facing only problem of water. So, we planned to build an open well for the purpose,” he added.
Digambar Upadhya, the Jhurimal village committee advisor, said “Our current generation is gradually forgetting our relationship with plants. The main objective of the ‘Sanjivani Vatika’ is to revive the lost bond between humans and trees. We want to make the children aware of the medicinal values of different trees.”
Initially, we began planting trees on 2.5 acres of land with only 56 plants. Now, the number of trees crossed the 100 marks, he added.
