State promotes use of herbal colours for safe Holi

Kolkata: The state Food Processing and Horticulture department is promoting the use and sale of herbal gulal, also known as abeer, during Holi celebrations.

The herbal abeer manufactured by a self-help group is being sold on the ground floor of Mayukh Bhavan in Salt Lake that houses the office of

the state Horticulture department.

"This is the second time we are undertaking such an initiative. We want to urge people to use herbal colours on the occasion of Holi festival. The regular colours available in the local market are very harmful and can cause skin allergies and eye irritation. So, we thought of promoting herbal colours," said a

senior official of state Food Processing and Horticulture department.

Apart from the detrimental effect on the skin or the eye, the regular colours are also responsible for causing pollution. "When a person takes bath in a river or pond after playing with the artificial colours, it pollutes the water," the official added.

According to the official, the self-help group, responsible for manufacturing the herbal abeer, has received training from Jadavpur University. The group has been involved with the manufacture of herbal colour for the past few years.

"We have extracted the colour from flowers and mixed it with talcum powder and arrowroot to manufacture the finished product," Sima Pandit, the head of the self-help group said.

There will be five varieties of abeer — green, orange, pink, yellow and violet extracted from rose, marigold, palash, aparajita and balsam, respectively.

"We have produced 10,000 packets this year and a number of engineering colleges in the city and the suburbs and Jadavpur University have already procured packets in bulk. The herbal colours will also be sold in retail market at Baidyabati in Hooghly and airport area where the two production units of the SHG group are situated," Pandit said.

The sale counter at Mayukh Bhavan has already been set up and will remain open till Wednesday. The price of the herbal colours has been fixed at Rs 30 per 100 grams. Visva Bharati authorities had expressed interest to buy herbal abeer but the deal did not materialise this year. "We are hopeful that we will reach Santiniketan with our product next year," Pandit said.