Padma Shri to Simon Oraon for Conserving Environment
India Plus Tv- Nov 3, 2022
- 1 min read
Simon Oraon received Padma Shri Award for his contribution to environment conservation. His dedication to conserve water and forests helped Bedo to become the agricultural hub of Jharkhand.
Class IV dropped out Simon Oraon fought a war against drought where many died of hunger and others migrated elsewhere in a quest for survival. At the age of 28 he joined a force with some like-minded friends to construct check dams to tap rainwater. The mud structures constructed with the limited resources at hand, did not last the first showers but Oraon did not lose heart. He prevailed upon government agencies until they were forced to help him set up a concrete dam.
The initiative soon took the shape of a movement. Oraon launched a massive tree plantation drive, and dug numbers of wells and ponds to ensure that rainwater doesn’t drain away. His initiative helped to learn the art of environment conservation to the residents of 51 villages.
Eventually, the hard work of Oraon started bearing fruit by increasing the Bedo’s water level. The waste lands turned cultivable, and there was sufficient water to grow more than one crop a year. Barely 20% of Jharkhand’s fields grow rabi crops.
Today, Bedo has become the agricultural hub of Jharkhand. The block supplies nearly 20,000 metric tonnes of vegetables to various districts in Jharkhand, besides neighbouring states like Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal.
Oraon now at the age of 83, still plants at least 1,000 saplings every year and even protects them too. Without his consent no villager dares chop off even a single branch of a tree.
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