Mail News Service
Saraikela: The terror of pandemic proportions spelt by COVID-19 shook many lives and upset income apple carts of people, leaving them stranded on the darker economic corridors. The resultant lockdown phases spelt doom for many families and individuals where even one square meal a day was luxury. Industries were closed down, transport workers sat idle, small traders and businessmen had pulled the shutters down over their sources of earning while unfortunately, some others preferred death to hunger.
But not so in the case of Nitai Mardi who lost his source of earning due to the factory he worked in at Adityapur Industrial Area closed shop during lockdown. Nitai, though dejected, was determined to defeat poverty. He had started a duck farm in his village Murkum which is in Yashpur panchayat under Gamharia Block. He had started duck rearing with 800 birds in January 2020. Things were looking up for him as his supplementary income through this income had begun to take shape. Then came the lockdown period in March. For him, as in the case of many others, the financial world came to a standstill. Nitai found it difficult to get feed for his ducks. He prepared rice for the birds. �I could not let them, go hungry. It was not their fault that my income sources had shut on the face of my fate. I knew, this was a negative period which would ease down gradually. Till then, I was determined to fend for the birds and my family,� said this mild mannered Nitai Mardi who has overcome the financial challenge posed by the COVID impact.
He started selling duck eggs in the lockdown market but this hardly brought him sufficient returns. Then he decided to hatch the eggs. The ducklings added to his stock. Gradually, the sale of ducks increased and today, Nitai Gorai has sufficient ducks to boast of in his farm. His endeavor is steadily and surely looking at a new dawn of positive prospects. He has become a success story in self employment. Today he employs quite a few young men of his village to tend to his duck farm.
Nitai Mardi is a perfect model of Prime Minister Narendra Modi�s mission, �Vocal for Local.� Unemployed youth can take heart from Nitai Mardi and look up the several viable avenues for self employment. Nitai observed, �It might sound harsh but for me COVID has had a positive effect on me. I struggled but did not get discouraged. I held my hopes and today, I am a happy and contented man. It gives me immense pleasure to see the youth of my village working in my farm and earning. I just pray that they too take up similar activities and become self dependent.�
Yes, Nitai Mardi can be termed a �Corona Positive� man for the positive results that the pandemic and its fallout have created in this young man dedicated to chase and find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow on the sky of fate.
