Bhawanipatna: The coronavirus pandemic which is sweeping all over the world has wiped out the livelihood of gullible forest dwellers living in this district and in other parts of Western Odisha, a report said.
The forest dwellers who are quite ignorant about the disease are finding it hard to earn their living in the absence of collections and sale of minor forest produce in this period. As a result, the forest dwellers have lost their livelihood as much as for six months due to coronavirus induced lockdown.
The forest dwellers, mainly tribals, earn their living from collection of minor forest produce like honey, resin, Mohua, sal leaves, firewood, sal seeds, neem, amla and other plant and tree products. They collect these products and sale them in the local markets or to outside traders for a living. A tribal family earns around Rs6,000 to 8,000 from the sale of these products.
The earning from these products helps them to keep their pot boiling and meet other minimal expenses of their families.
Reports said that annually over 25,000 quintals of mohua are collected in the state. However, due to lack of marketing facilities these tribals always live under the mercy of dishonest traders and village money lenders. The hooch traders of Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh mainly fix the prices of mohua for these tribals.
As a result, they always fall prey to unfair practices of village money lenders and unscrupulous traders. Moreover, the lockdown has aggravated their problems when the time has come for collection of mohua and sal seeds.
This has come as an opportunity for the dishonest traders and money lenders who are leaving no stone unturned to fleece these gullible tribals.
The mohua flowers bloom in between February and April. The tribals and the people living on the fringes of forest venture into jungles to collect these flowers and seeds. They work for the whole day and collect around 2 to 2.5 kg of mohua flowers. They bring home these flowers and seeds and dry them under sun before sale.
However, this year the sudden announcement of lockdown when they were preparing for collection has dealt a heavy blow to them. They could not collect nor sale their previous stock to these traders.
There is a practice that the agents of the various country liquor making units move from village to village and collect the stocks from the doorsteps of tribals. They also used to sale their stocks at the local weekly markets but are unable to sale now because of the coronavirus induced lockdown.
They are now forced to go for distress sale and sale their stocks to the village money lenders and dishonest at throwaway prices. Reports claimed that at many places money lenders do not pay them money and fleece them at their will. Observers have demanded the government to intervene and help the tribals in earning their living.
PNN