Nagpur: An advanced wood processing and training centre built at a cost of 1.6 crore has opened at Alapalli in Gadchiroli to convert the district’s famed teak from raw forest produce into finished furniture and keep value, employment and profit inside the district. What’s heartwarming is that the Alapalli success story is driven by tribal women.Gadchiroli teak has already been used in nationally important work linked to Prime Minister’s Office, Central Secretariat, Central Vista and Bharat Mandapam.Set up under the district planning committee’s innovative scheme for 2024-25 at Maharashtra Forest Development Corporation’s govt saw mill, the facility is designed as a complete local chain of training, production, finishing and market access rather than another point from which timber simply leaves the forests.Till now, much of that timber left as raw or semi-processed material and was finished elsewhere. The new centre is intended to change that. Local women process the wood so that the finished product, jobs and returns remain in Gadchiroli instead of migrating with the logs.District collector Avishyant Panda last week inaugurated the centre and said the project would turn a forest-rich but industrially thin district into a place that retains the last stage of value addition. He had given administrative approval and sanctioned funds from the district’s Navinya Purna allocation in March 2025.A year and a half later, the centre is operational, nearly 20 women are employed, and demand for Gadchiroli teak at the national level has become visible. “The next step this year is approval of a pellet unit that could take women’s employment towards 100,” said Panda.“Training is core of the project. Women who completed the course have already produced tables, trays and other wooden items, showing skill can be honed to create revenue,” he said.Five of them — Muktabai Bhupeliwar, Kavita Mulkari, Sandhya Thakre, Rajalakshmi Popeli and Lakshmi Pedi — were honoured by the collector with shawls and coconuts for completing training and demonstrating finished work.
