E-Paper
CM wants all-neem ?van?
CHIEF MINISTER Mulayam Singh Yadav?s passion for neem is keeping forest department on toes! The department is busy procuring neem trees from other states for the proposed Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Neem Van in the city.
CHIEF MINISTER Mulayam Singh Yadav’s passion for neem is keeping forest department on toes!
The department is busy procuring neem trees from other states for the proposed Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Neem Van in the city.
The project would come up on a 16-hectare of land at Smriti Van on Kanpur Road. The Rs 50 lakh project is being funded by the State Government and would have over 30 different varieties of neem trees. Experts from the National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) have been consulted while the main objective of developing the park is exploiting the medicinal qualities of the plant.
One of the main features of the Lohia neem van is that it would have representative trees from different parts of the country.
“Factors like impact of climate and soil conditions on neem species from other states would be studied,” said Chief Conservator of Forests Uma Shankar Singh and added that it could be either way positive or negative.
He and other officers are trying hard to re-establish their old contacts in the forests departments of other states to enable them to procure trees. So far as deals are concerned, we have finalised one with Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Chandigarh, Jharkhand, Punjab, and Madhya Pradesh, says chief conservator.
“We are also exploring possibilities for procuring varieties from states like Tamil Nadu so as to increase the variety,” said DFO Sanjay Singh. Varieties from Mayanmar, Pakistan, and Ghana would also be a part of the neem van.
The Chief Minister has desired that the height of trees should be over 8-feet, but the department has been getting trees in the range of 2 to 4 feet. “This will create a gene pool bank of neem,” said Singh.
The forest department had contacted the Central Arid Zone Research Institute in Jodhpur, which had supplied a dozen samples, including that from other countries. About 8,000 trees of over 30 different varieties would be planted in the neem van.
In Uttar Pradesh alone, there are 50 per cent of total variety found in the world.
But there has been under utilization of neem trees in UP, despite the fact that there are about 82 lakh full grown neem trees in Uttar Pradesh.
