Mahua flowers have been a boon for the forest dwellers in western Odisha who earn their livelihood basically from minor forest produce.

Most of them depend on this for sustaining themselves for six to seven months in a year. The period between March and May is the peak season for collecting Mahua flowers, a non-timber forest produce.

The flower is the raw material used for making country spirit which is a big source of revenue for the State Government. In the wake of inclement weather over the last couple of months, flowers are not falling off the trees naturally or have been damaged.

Even in many places, new leaves are yet to sprout which has raised livelihood concerns of the forest-dwellers.

Sabita Marai of Tabdabahal in Rengali block had collected four quintals of Mahua flower last season. But this year she managed to collect only one quintal. Like her, Bhagbati Khamari of the same village collected barely one and a half quintals of Mahua flower against four quintals she had collected last season.

The economics of Mahua flower is unique. While it fetches the much-needed income for the poor tribals, the government earns a huge revenue from the brewed spirit that is prepared from the flowers. While the brew is priced at Rs 50 a litre, the cost of a kg of Mahua flower is only Rs five. Villagers, mostly women and children, toil the whole day to collect Mahua flowers, dry them and sell it to the mahajans (middlemen). But their problems do not end here.

Normally, a gram panchayat level committee is constituted at block level to fix the price of NTFP. But the price is yet to be fixed and under the circumstances, it is the middlemen who end up earning the maximum leaving the poor collectors in the lurch. In the absence of knowledge about the prices fixed for the NTFP, the tribals are forced to dispose of the flowers at whatever price the middlemen offer.

To add to their woes, there are no storage facilities and huts of the collectors are too small to stock the flowers.