Motihari residents to plant 51k champa saplings on June 5
2 min readMOTIHARI: Motihari residents will plant 51,000 saplings of champa on the occasion of World Environment Day on June 5 in a bid to make the event a grand one and also get a place in the Limca Book of Records.
KBC’s fifth season winner Sushil Kumar, whose hometown is Motihari and has launched a drive to plant champa saplings across the district said, “A team of Limca Book of Records will be visiting Motihari on June 5. “The team will go through the entire process, find out the motive behind the expedition and they will take at least 12 weeks to announce the final result.”
Sources said all the nurseries in East Champaran district have exhausted their stock of champa saplings as around 15,000 saplings have already been planted here over the past two months. Nursery owners said that fresh saplings are being brought from Kolkata, Chandigarh and Kanpur at the rate Rs 40 each.
“People are visiting nurseries every day to purchase champa saplings,” said a nursery owner Nur Mohammad here. The popular belief among Champaran’s residents is that Champaran derives its name from the white flower champa the Botanical name of which is Magnolia Champaca, as this area used to be ‘aranya’ (forest) of champa trees.
Sushil said that he has also appealed to the district administration to plant this flower on the banks of canals and both sides of state and national highways in the district.
“There is a record of six crore plants of various species planted in a day, but our move is to plant 51,000 saplings of a single species to make it to the Limca Book of Records,” said Sushil adding, “As many as 23,000 champa saplings will be planted on June 5 in 48 wards of the Nagar Parishad.”
Meanwhile, head of the department of botany, MS College, Ratnesh Anand said, “Champa is not only used widely for offering puja but it has immense medicinal values.”
East Champaran DM Raman Kumar said the involvment of common people in this event will certainly yield positive results and help to popularize the champa flower. “We are contemplating to plant mangolia under various government schemes in the district,” said the DM.
Courtesy: TNN
