The Hindu Business Line : Project to turn vacant temple lands green

The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), which administers and controls around 1,200 temples in Kerala, is to launch a project to plant all the vacant land available at the temples with 28 species of trees and medicinal plants under a new scheme "Nakshatraphalam".

"It is a novel concept that could be easily implemented with the participation of the devotees and without involving any major investment on the part of the Board," Mr G Raman Nair, President, TDB, told Business Line.

According to astrology, there are 28 constellations (stars) in the Zodiac under which each person is born. A person born under a particular star is attached to a specific tree and that has to be taken care of by the person with reverence. It is this belief that could be capitalised upon, he said.

To facilitate the planting of the trees, the Board would provide space in the temple complex where idle land exists, besides making available the tree species at a nominal cost, he said.

Trip to Tamil Nadu

Making available the planting material is going to be an uphill task as many of these species are unknown to most people while some appear to be extinct. A temple complex in Tamil Nadu has all the 28 species, which is probably the only temple in the country to have these trees in one compound. A TDB team was planning to visit this temple to find out the possibility of getting the planting material, he said.

The state forest department could provide some of the tree species. Planting materials of medicinal plants would be made available by the "Oushadhi", the State-owned Ayurvedic drug manufacturing enterprise, which has a nursery of medicinal plants, he said.

Once the scheme is announced, definitely a large number of devotees would come forward to plant their respective species of trees. Since they are supposed to protect the trees and nurture them, an initiative from the devotees could be expected for their maintenance.

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