अपना बुंदेलखंड डॉट कॉम परिवार के सदस्यों को "रामनवमी" की शुभकामनायें। राम जिन्होंने बुंदेलखंड के चित्रकूट क्षेत्र में संकल्प लिया कि "निश्चर हीन महि करूँ , भुज उठाहि प्रण (Read More)
ApnaBundelkhand.com,LUCKNOW: Over the past eight years,
Bhure Kol has added two rooms to his house, replaced its thatched roof
with
corrugated iron sheets and bought a second—hand moped. The illiterate
tribal from Masaura, Lalitpur in Bundelkhand owes his prosperity to the
rich
herbal haul made by the family of six. The demand for ware on sale
— Ashwagandha (withania somnifera) known popularly as Indian ginseng,
White Museli (chiorophytum barivillianum) touted as desi Viagra, and
other
assorted prized herbs has gone up manifold. Therefore the market is
growing,
price is good and most importantly buyers turn up at his doorsteps
saving him a
business trip out of the quiet little hamlet to Jhansi.
A hotbed of
intense political activity, Bundelkhand is fast turning into a favourite
hunting
ground for big players in the alternative medicine. The region, in
league with
Orissa and Chattisgarh with its abundant medicinal plant produce, is
equally
vulnerable due to endemic poverty and therefore a gold mine waiting to
be
exploited by mushrooming herbal industry in Noida, Delhi, Gurgaon, and
Faridabad. All they have to do is to send smart agents to pay the
tribals
advance money during lean seasons and then buy at their own rates.
Luckily for
them government offers little competition.
Nearly 80% of tribals
don’t even step into the collection centres set up by the state forest
corporation, claimed Hem Raj Tripathi, one of the retailers in Manikpur,
Chitrakoot. "Sarkari rates,” Tripathi says "are a joke”.
And sure enough the rate list of the corporation 2007 08 offers Rs 30
for a kg
of Satawar (asparagus racemousus) which dwindled to Rs 29 in 2009. The
herb
"greatly in demand by lactating mothers fetches between Rs 300 to 600
depending on the quality in Lucknow,” says LL Yadav, a dealer in
Aminabad,
Lucknow.
Interestingly dozens of names like agani (cleaodendrum
phiamoidis) a tonic and cure for syphilis, gagelua (ceropegia tuberosa)
and
Arjun (tarminalia Arjuna) for heart ailments including museli white and
black
both or Ashwagandha have disappeared from the rate list. The reason not
even a
kg of these has reached the collection centres since 2004 show the
records of
the annual auction sources in the forest department claim that they have
been
missing even before.
