Local Name: Beedi patta, Kendu leaf
Botanical Name: Diospyros melanoxylon

This species is found extensively in the whole of Jharkhand state. It is prized for its fruit and leaf. The fruit ripens in April – May when the paddy stock runs short and thus comes handy as a supplement of food. But it is the Kendu leaf, in which tobacco is rolled to manufacture bidi, which gives them monetary value for their labour.

Phenology

• Leaf Shedding: May - June
• Flowering: April - May. It flowers on the new shoot
• Fruit Ripenning: The following April - May

Distribution
The tree is found everywhere in the state of Jharkhand, frequent along streams in Chota Nagpur, especially in deep rocky ravines. It occurs both in Northern tropical dry and moist deciduous as well as subsidiary Edaphic types of dry tropical forests of the state.

Silviculture
The species associated with Kendu are:

Moist peninsular valley sub type: Terminallia tomentosa, Terminallia bellerica, Terminallia arjuna, Adina cordifolia, Diospyros melanoxylon, Pterocarpus marsupium, Madhuca indica.

Dry peninsular subtype: Diospyros melanoxylon, Buchanania latifolia, Boswellia serrata,Apogeisous latifolia, Dillenia aurea, Lagerstormia parviflora

Subsidiary Edaphic Types of dry tropical forest: Anogeissus pendula, Acacia catechu, Anogeissus latifolia, Lagerstormia parviflora

Utilisation

Fruit
The fruit is bitter, acrid, cooling, digestible, carminative, astringent to the bowels; when ripe cures bniliousness and “vata”.
Leaf
The leaves have a bad taste and smell; diuretic, carminative, laxative, styptic, good in epistaxis and night blindness, improves the eyesight; used in opthalmia, trichiasis, burns, tuberculous glands, scabies and old wound. It forms the basic raw material for the manufacture of Biri.
Bark
The bark of the tree possess astringent qualities, and is used as decoction for diarrhoea and dyspepsia and as a tonic. In dilute form, it is used as an astringent lotion for the eyes.

Collection Process

Collection Period: May – June
Marketable Kendu leaves are commonly plucked from plants 3’ to 4’ in height, though large sized tree are often lopped for this purpose. But large sized trees, however, do not grow good quality leaf. The leaves are plucked from the tree and collected by the villagers of the nearby villages. In Biri trade, quality of leaf generally goes by the states. Orissa leaves has quality I and that of Madhya Pradesh quality II, whereas the leaf of Jharkhand comes under quality III. To assess the quality of the leaf, size and thickness of leaf are taken into account. Quality I leaf is over 6” in size and yields three biris and there is less wastage in the factory.
The packed bags are stacked upon one another inside a huge godown. These bags have to be protected from moisture, rat and theft. The walls of the godown are plastered from outside and not plastered from inside to prevent the moisture from creeping in. Another technique practised by the traders for storing kendu leaves is that a layer of sand is spread on the ground and on top of it is kept a bamboo / plastic frame and bags containing kendu leaves is kept on these frames.

Processing
The processing at primary collector level includes making bundles of 50 leaves called ‘POLA’. One leaf is kept beneath the bundle and one leaf above the bundle and tied. So actually there are 52 leaves in one Pola. The processing done at the trader level includes drying of the Pola in sunlight. The whole process of drying and packing lasts for 10 days and can be divided into 4 stages. In the first stage one side of all the polas are dried in sunlight for 4 days. During the second stage the other side of the Polas is dried for 3 days. In the third stage the Polas are kept vertically and dried for 2 days. In the last stage the Polas are moistened a little during the evening and are packed in Bora’s in the wee hours of the next morning. These Bora’s are also moistened and kept under the sunlight before being loaded into the trucks for transportation in the same evening.
Processing at Industry level includes six basic stages of biri making:

• Moistening
The leaf is first dipped in water until it becomes flexible enough for folding.
• Cutting & storing
The leaves are put inside a frame and cut to get the desired shape and size. These cut leaves are put inside a moistened jute sac and regularly moistened so that the cut leaves do not dry.
• Filling & Rolling
Tobacco is filled inside the cut leaves and rolled to form biri. The technique adopted here is that either the nails of the labourers doing rolling are long so that it becomes easy for them to roll the leaf or else they will be using a nail shaped equipment to achieve the same.
• Tying
The rolled leaves are tied with threads.
• Drying
The biri’s are then placed on a frame which is kept over a coal Chullah to let the biri’s dry. This is done because dry biri (pukka biri) catches fire easily whereas the biri sold in the market as Kacha biri is not dried and as such catches fire with great difficulty.
• Bundling
20 – 25 biri’s are grouped together and packaged with the brand name.

Grading
At trader level Grading is done according to the following criteria:
1) Size

a) Large
b) Medium : It is the best quality
c) Small

2) Colour: White colour is the best
3) Moisture content: The more dried the leaf the better its quality
4) Smoothness: The greater the smoothness the better the quality
5) Thickness: The leaf that is transparent is better.

Since the leaves are of unequal size and weight therefore the no. of leaves in 1 kg. varies with the size and weight. Sometimes 16 – 20 polas = 1kg. whereas at others 35 polas = 1 kg.. So on an average we can assume that 27 polas = 1 kg. (for dry leaves)
Green leaves: 100 pola = 6kg= 3kg. after drying

Trading Centres

The Kendu patta is collected from the forest and sold locally at the centers specifically assigned for this purpose by the govt., known as Phadi,. From the state the kendu patta goes to various trading centers throughout the country. These are:

• Dhulian, Malda, Rampur, Murshidabad, Calcutta in West Bengal. (For best quality of kendu leaf)
• Gursahaiganj, Moradabad U.P..
• Begusarai, Purnia, Bakri Bazaar, Jai Nagar in North Bihar, (For lowest quality of Kendu leaf)
• Dumka, Deogarh, Jhurmundi in Central Bihar
• Ranchi (Gulabh marka)
  

Traders

• Shri Gyan Chand Pandey
  Station Road, Daltonganj.
• Mohd. Hussain Khan
  Kund Mohalla,Daltonganj.
• M/s Khan & Khan Brothers
  Ranchi Road, Redma, Daltonganj
• Mohd Riyaz
  Chatra.
• Shanker Gupta
  Chatra.
• Mohd. Sultan
  Chatra.
• Amnaullah Khan
  Hashmiyan Colony, Hazaribagh.
• Muzahir Hussain
  Hashmiyan Colony, Hazaribagh.
• M/s Divya Trading Co.
  Rehla.
• Umesh Kumar Khatri
  Tungri, Chaibasa.
• Sunil Shah
  Ranchi Road, Chakradharpur.

Buyers list

1) Lew Tobacco,
Liaquat Biswas,
Dhulian, (W.B)
2) Kanti Lala Pujara,
Ravider Road, Malda,
West Bengal.
3) Noor Bidi & Co.
Dak Bangla chowk,
Murshidabad. (W.B.)
4) Sanjay Bhagat,
Dhulian
 03485-65447
5) Sudhakar Sharma
Calcutta
 033-2383350
6) New Shanker Bidi,
Amrohar, (U.P.)
 05691 – 53137
7) Bade Babuji,
 05922 - 59275

Price Trend

The price variation in the buying of Kendu leaf from the primary collector is shown in the table given below

Price Influencing Factors
Since Kendu leaf is a nationalised product and as such there is zero competition at the primary collector level and the prices are fixed by the government. At the trader level the maket forces and demand and supply govern the price. Another factor that influences the price is the quality of the kendu leaf which again depends on the climatic conditions prevalent at the time of collection and processing.