Jashore: The tradition of preserving heritage continues in Jashore as the date palm tree (Khajur) congregation is held in the district’s Abhaynagar upazila. On Saturday (November 11), a congregation of date palm trees took place in the upazila parishad’s meeting hall, jointly organized by the upazila administration and the Department of Agriculture.
During this event, 728 beautifully decorated date palm trees paraded in a grand procession through the streets, with the district administrator of Jashore, Mohammad Abaraul Hassan Majumdar, being present as the chief guest. The event was presided over by UNO (Upazila Nirbahi Officer) A.M. Abu Noshad, and it featured special guests such as Manjurul Haque, Deputy Director of Agriculture for the district, Shusanto Kumar Das Shanto, Mayor of Nowapara Municipality, Kamruzzaman, Upazila Assistant Commissioner (Land), Mehedee Masud, Officer-in-Charge of Abhaynagar Police Station, Rabiul Hasan, President of Nowapara Government College, Labli Khatoon, an agriculture official in the upazila, Ali Ahmed Khan, a freedom fighter, Akhtaruzzaman Taru, Vice Chairman of the Upazila Parishad, Minara Parveen, Mozaffar Ahmed, the Editor of Nowapara Press Club, and Advocate Faraji Nasir Uddin, Chairman of the Union Parishad, along with Hafizur Rahman from the date palm tree community.
The organizers explained that there are thousands of date palm trees in this upazila, but more than half of them do not have their sap collected. As a result, the congregation of date palm trees aims to motivate the date palm tree owners to engage in sap collection and encourage the production of jaggery with pesticide-free sap, promoting it in the market.
The event received overall support from South Bengal Fertilizer Limited, and in addition to this, awareness was created to refrain from consuming raw date palm sap to prevent the Nipah virus. The event also featured the felicitation of 34 date palm tree owners. The South Bengal Fertilizer provided blankets and caps as gifts to the participating date palm tree owners during the event.
