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Golokganj teak farmer a beacon of hope for jobless youths

By AMBU NATH SHARMA

GAURIPUR, March 20 - Gardening of teak tree (scientific name- Tectona grandis) may bring hope to the unemployed youths who are looking for employment for years together and are getting frustrated.

Bhopal Chandra Ray Prodhani, a science graduate youth of village Bausmari under Golokganj Revenue Circle has set an example for the unemployed educated youths by planting teak trees in a plot of one and half bighas of his own patta land and he hopes to become a millionaire within 15 years.

In order to fructify his plan into reality, he started planting saplings of teak tree in the year 2016. For this purpose, he brought 150 saplings of teak tree from Halakura area of the district of Dhubri at Rs 50/- per sapling. He prepared the plot of land spending nearly Rs 20,000 and planted the saplings in several rows. He also erected a fence around the plot for protection from stray cattle and spent nearly Rs 5000 for that purpose. Presently the plants are growing. He cleans the garden every month by spending nearly Rs 1200/- per month. Initially, he had planted 150 saplings but as a few saplings died, he again filled up the gap by planting new saplings. He never uses any chemical fertiliser but place sweepings and waste materials above the trunk of the tree and irrigates them occasionally.

While on a visit to his garden, Prodhani told this correspondent that the trees will mature after 15-16 years and if needed, a tree can be cut down 2 or 3 years earlier also. He hopes to easily sell the logs of a tree approximately for Rs 40,000/-. He can also sell the sawed timber at high rate. He further told this correspondent that he wishes to expand his garden if nature helps him in his endeavour.

Teak is a tropical hard wood tree species placed in the flowering plant family Lamiaceae. Some forms of teak are known as Burmese teak, Central Province teak as well as Nagpur teak. Teak is a large deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hard-wood forest. One of the first things that will jump out at potential buyers is that furniture made from teak wood is consistently among the most expensive. The reason is that teak is valuable both for its elegance and its durability. Beyond its beauty, it also possesses some natural properties that other woods don�t have.

A few of the educated unemployed youths of the locality want to start teak tree gardens like Prodhani but are lagging behind due to financial problems and some are also landless. The District Industries Centre also fails to motivate and encourage them to pursue such projects for their benefit. Due to many reasons the forest cover of the district has been drastically reduced causing pollution everywhere but no one is seen interested to plant trees and save the world.

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