Man who turned barren land into forest

Koderma (Jharkhand), Sept 03: Pritam Yadav may not match Bihar's 'mountain man' Dasrath Manjhi, who died recently, but his contribution is no less in Jharkhand.

If Manjhi showed grit to move a hill hammer and chisel in hand for 22 years to bring his home village closer to Gaya's Wazirgang, Manjhi, an illiterate, worked 50 years to single-handedly turn his eight-acre barren land into a lush jungle at Yadutand village in Koderma district.

His mission started in the late 1950s when he began collecting plants for his barren land.

"It took me 50 years to turn the land into a mini forest. I used to go to the kutchery (court) at Jhumritilaya and while returning home I used to collect plants given free by the forest department," Yadav, who is 80-years-old, said.

"I planted and nourished the plants," he said.

He constructed four small channels for protecting the greenery on the land dotted with hundreds of palm trees.

At his age, he is still active in preserving the land that has various kinds of trees and different types of agro products like sugarcane, madhua (a type of wheat) and maize, said his son Dasrath.