Lahari Bai, a Baiga tribal native of Silpadi village, lives with her parents in a two-room Indira Awas house with her parents. While one room serves as a living room and kitchen, the other has been converted into a Beej Bank, which stores around 150-plus rare millets such as Kodo, Kutki, Sanwa, Madhya, Salhar, and Kaag crops (most of them minor millets).
This comes at a time when the government is working hard to make India a global hub of 'Shree Anna' (millets) cultivation and research.
Lahari Bai plants these seeds in a section of her agricultural plot. Following that, the multiplied seed varieties are distributed to farmers in her village as well as the other 15-20 villages that comprise the 54-village Baika Chak (villages native to the Baiga tribal population). It is free of charge.
In exchange, the farmers give her a small portion of their harvest. However, the decade-long journey is far from a fairy tale.
Lahari recalls being mocked by her own community as a teenager: "People ridiculed me and often drove me away, but I had only two missions, one to not marry and serve my parents for the rest of my life, and the second to conserve millet seeds and promote their farming. Now no one insults me anymore," Lahari informed media.
"If she gets the scholarship, she will be seen guiding Ph.D. students," said Dindori district collector Vikas Mishra, who nominated Lahari (who never went to school) for a coveted Rs 10 lakh scholarship of a Jodhour-based ICAR.
