Popularly known as theGach Baba, Dukhu Majhi has received the prestigious Padma Shri along with Nepal Sutradhar, who has become the third Chhau dancer from Purulia district to receive this year’s Padma Shri. Dukhu Majhi, the octogenarian from Sindri Village in Purulia, locally popular as the Gach Babahas been planting saplings since his childhood.

Though he stays in a thatched house, he has planted more than several thousands of trees throughout the Ayodhya Hills. The forest department had presented him with a bicycle so that he could roam and plant saplings. He feels with the regular incidents of forest fires, there is a necessity to plant more saplings in order to restore the environment and ecosystem.

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“Ayodhya Hills is the lungs of Purulia, just as the Amazon rainforest is to the whole world. Since my childhood I have felt the need to plant trees in order to get oxygen. If you cut one tree you should plant five, I tell children. Wherever I found empty space, I planted trees from my own pocket.

I didn’t care about the ownership of the land. It gives me satisfaction as the central government has recognised my work,” he said. In the latest data on forest coverage in the country, released by the Union ministry of environment and forests, Purulia is the only district in the state to record an increase in green cover. It was due to the efforts of people like Dukhu Majhi and the forest department officials.

Late Gamvir Singh Mura, the legendary Chaau dancer of the mask village of Purulia, Charida, was the first Chaau dancer in India to receive the Padma Shri in 1981. Two years later Nepal Mahato of Adabana Village in Barabazar won the Padma Shri. It took 41 years for Purulia, the hub of UNESCO’S cultural heritage Chaau dance to get the third Padma Shri Award. However, Nepal Sutradhar has received the posthumous award.

“It feels great with such national recognition of two such world famous talents from this backward district whom posterity should remember in the next few decades to come through their works and achievement,” said Jyotirmoy Mahato, MP from Purulia