Odisha: OFDC to carry out ‘massive’ plantation drive to compensate the destroyed forest cover in Sikharchandi hill

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Forest Development Corporation (OFDC) has decided to restore the forest cover by carrying out a massive plantation drive, which was earlier destroyed due to ongoing construction work in Sikharchandi hill on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, an official source said today.

Acting on a request of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) in this regard, the OFDC is to restore a lost forest cover on a patch of land measuring around 7.5 acres. A team of OFDC officials has already visited the land where trees are to be planted and demarcated an area for the purpose. The massive plantation drive will start soon, a senior official of OFDC who visited the site expressed.

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On the other hand, Sikharchandi Anchalika Surakshya Samiti (a local outfit) alleged that the construction of a mega drinking water project atop the hill taken up by the State government is going on unabated despite an abeyance notice earlier issued by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Kolkata.

The outfit has plans to plant trees en masse on July 22 morning at around 10 am. Any sort of water tank construction on the hill will be vehemently opposed, some members of the outfit warned.

Worth mentioning, the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) mentioned in a review article published in 1966-67 that the Mahisamardini idol of the presiding deity Maa Sikharchandi dates back to the 7th Century CE. The goddess was the favourite deity of Shailodbhava and Bhaumakara rulers.

During ‘Paika Bidroha’ (uprising against the British regime) in erstwhile Khordhagada in the year 1817, the rebels used to practice and indulge in guerrilla warfare after taking the blessings of Sikharchandi, Daruthenga gram panchayat sarpanch Tapan Kumar Chakraborty and coordinator of the outfit Sachin Mohapatra expressed quoting a narration made in this regard in the book ‘Khordha Darpan’.