The flowers are a favourite food of rats, whose population explodes as a result. The next year, when there are no flowers, the rats often eat up so much food grain nearby that there is a major shortage, as happened in Mizoram last year.

For the second scheme, the CCEA approved an outlay of Rs.369 crore in the 11th plan, up from Rs.46 crore in the 10th. The Japanese government is giving a soft loan of Rs.206 crore for the training scheme, Ramesh said, adding that in different states, the centre would bear 75 percent of the cost of training forest department personnel, while the states would be asked to pay the rest.