Two Maoist-affected Gadchiroli villages to transform into ‘honey villages’

Nagpur: The Maharashtra State Khadi and Village Industries Board has earmarked two villages, Kumarbuda at Bhamragarh and Sanegaon at Korchi, located in the Maoist-affected Gadchiroli district to transform them into ‘Madhachi gava’ or ‘honey villages’. Apart from saving environment, especially the food chain, the scheme was also launched to generate livelihood in the rural sector.
The board, with it’s Pune-based directorate, will act as the nodal agency.It has earmarked at least one village in every revenue division to act as the centre for implementing various programmes, ranging from bee-keeping to honey tourism. The objective is to save bees from going extinct, and also generating employment. The programmes would be conducted in the rural areas following the objectives set as per the government’s ‘Madha Kendra Yojana’ or honey centre scheme.
The officials also aim to develop honey tourism in the earmarked villages, where visitors would be educated about bees through open-to-all information galleries, their life-cycle, bee-keeping, honey and it’s other products and their benefits.
On Friday, which was also observed as ‘World Honey day’, local officials of the board visited several villages across Maharashtra, like Pirli in Bhadrawati taluka of Chandrapur, and Amjhari in Amravati district. They spread awareness regarding the significance of bees in our food chain or food web, their ecological contribution, and the usage of honey.
The villagers were also informed about the prospects in bee-rearing and bee-keeping as a livelihood, and employment generation avenues, apart from the wide uses of honey and it’s several by-products like honey wax.
Anshu Sinha, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the board, said the pilot project was launched at Manghar village near Mahabaleshwar earlier in May, after the place was earmarked as ‘Madhacha gav’. “Apart from training, the villagers were made aware about the 50% subsidized livelihood scheme through ‘Madha Kendra Yojana (or honey centre scheme). The bee boxes, tools and technical support would be provided under the special scheme,” said Sinha, adding the villagers would be motivated to collect and process honey at source itself, which would ensure high quality.
Sinha added heavy and speedy industrialization are pushing bees to a perilous situation of going extinct. “We shall help villagers showcase, market and sell their honey and products too,” she said.
“In the near future, there would be online and offline modes, and platforms to help bee-keepers sell their products. Currently, bee-keepers are also offered opportunities to sell us the honey product, which we sell through different outlets,” said Sinha, adding bees help in pollination, which is the basis of fruiting and flowering processes.