Top 20 Most Inspirational Personalities Of Odisha 2020: Amresh Naresh Samanta

Human beings are by far the most intelligent creatures on the planet earth. The almighty brain of humans could have been utilized to preserve our mother earth for future generation by maintaining a perfect ecological harmony. However, the never-ending rapacious nature of humans unfolded our planet towards the virtue of extinction. Not only, we as humans have also wiped out entire species of flora and fauna by cutting acres of forest land every day; we have even risked our species to the threshold of extinction.

The unfortunate part is that even today, the majority of the people are unaware of the environmental crises the earth is facing. Most of them are indeed deliberate to fill the pockets with huge loads of cash. However, few pioneers continue their fight to restore the peace and harmony of mother earth. One of the messiahs working towards the restoration of our beautiful planet is Amresh Naresh Samanta.

Amresh Naresh Samanta is an engineer by profession but an environmental activist by work. The task done by him in close to two decades is nothing short of a miracle. Mr Samantha has built 20 forests in the last 19 years. It is nothing but his commitment towards the mother earth, which motivates him to heal the planet every day.

 It all started twenty-five years ago when Amresh was just a teenager. He was deeply depressed to witness the unanimous cutting down of trees in front of him. Therefore, he decided to plant a tree every day. However, the major turnaround came in the year 1999 when Odisha was devastated with the Super Cyclone. Samanta could not witness the massive destruction of forest due to the cyclone. 

The Super Cyclone in 1999 made Amresh Naresh Samanta more determined to save the mother earth. He, along with few of his friends, started the organization Baba Balunkeswara Gramya Bikash Parisada aiming to create protected artificial forest land, unharmed by the vicious people.

Apart from planting millions of trees, Baba Balunkeswara Gramya Bikash Parisada also provides shelters to a lot of birds in the forest. Human activities have led many birds on the verge of extinction as well; therefore Amresh along with his team provides shelter by building many nests for the birds with soil and organic materials like twigs, grass and leaves. In the summer season, they give water to them and during winter, they feed them as well.

The noble work of Amresh and his team gets continuous support of the local people as well as the government. Cheers to the saviours of the motherland, who gives hope for the future generation to witness the blossoming of the flowers and the chirping of the birds.