ramnagar barabanki the nationwide lockdown may have revived the wildlife with animals roaming freely not only in jungles but also in city areas and rivers turning more blue as there is hardly any discharge of industrial waste but it has some pitfalls too mainly for those whose livelihood depends on forestsdue to the lockdown tribals are not able to move out to collect mahua fruits or tendu leaves used in making bidis and other forest produce of summerswith the onset of summer long lush trees of mahua start flowering and by midmarch these flowers turn into small yellow fruits which are used by tribals as food item mahua fruit is also fermented to produce alcoholic drink during the season hundreds of tribals can be seen going to forests normally in wee hours to collect mahua which is also used to make aata flour having high nutritional and medicinal valuesmahua fruit is an essential food item for tribals they dehydrate it and use it as aata for making rotis said speaker hriday narayan dixit who has extensively toured the state he described mahua as poor mans raisins in indian and ethnic medicine system mahua is also described as a herbal fruit he addedtalking to toi famous folksinger malini awasthi also admits that tribals are not able to move to forest areas due to the lockdown summarising the sociocultural importance of mahua among tribals of different states she said champa phale bela phale aur mahua ke ras tapke o rama sari sari ratiyameanwhile villagers of ramnagar in barabanki said that mahua season is hardly of one month it starts from march 15 and ends by april 1520 it is our main livelihood mean in summers we sell it in market and also keep it with us for making rotis the lockdown has made our lives toughsame is the condition of over 50000 people living near forests in vindhyachal ranges every morning during summers they enter forests to pluck tendu leaves they sell it to the forest corporation which is authorised to organise auctions for forwarding it to bidi manufacturersthe lockdown has halted the tendu leaves collection work forcing thousands of people to sit idle though a forest corporation spokesman said that they would begin operations from may till then tribals and villagers who depend on tendu leaf collection or mahua would have to wait