Palashpur, A beautiful tour place in the World !

Haider Ali Talukder, founder of Palashpur.

Palashpur is a village in Matiranga (Bengali: মাটিরাঙ্গা) Upazila of Khagrachhary (Bengali: খাগড়াছড়ি) District, Bangladesh. Palashpur village was named and made habitable by Mr. Haider Ali Talukder and few of his comrades. The village covers an area of 7.43 sq km (approx)and is surrounded by Hatiapara village to the East, Kheda Chhara to the North, Ojodda to the West and Matiranga Sadar to the South. Palashpur under Matiranga Pourashava was established in 1981. The village consists of three wards and few Mahallas. The village has a primary school (Palashpur Primary School), four mosques, a madrasa, three community schools and about five small hills. Non-governmental organizations operating in Palashpur include UNDP, BDAO (Bangladesh Development Acceleration Organisation), Grameen Bank, BRAC, ASA.

History:
Palashpur was one of the most fearful and deep jungle areas in the district. Nobody had the courage to enter the area due to the prevalence of tribal terrorism activities (in Bengali these terrorists are called Shantibahinee). Nobody couldn´t think of going there let alone living there. Mr. Haider Ali Talukder was first man who visited this area and created a modern village and named it Palashpur.

Mr. Haider Ali Talukdar was born December 28, 1957 in Gopalganj District, Bangladesh. He was a famous business man in Dhaka during late seventies. When he went Khagrachhary he was the Chairman of "tribal and non-tribal rehabilitation project". Then he worked there for homeless people of Bangladesh. He rehabilitated a lot of tribal and non-tribal people in hilly district from different corners of the country.

Palashpur was a deep jungle area. He cut about 3 square kilometre area of jungle for establishing a small village. He wanted to rehabilitate some people here. Finally he was able to clear this area with the help of local people. He named this newly formed village as "Palashpur" according to name of his 2nd son Mohammad Kamruzzaman Palash. He rehabilitated more than 300 people in Palashpur from various districts of Bangladesh. He established a school namely "Palashpur Primary School", a mosque "Palashpur Jame Masjid" and "Palashpur Madrasha". He also constructed a road from Palashpur to Hatiapara and named it "Mitaly Road". Another road from Palashpur to Alutila Bazar was also constructed by him which local people now call it "Haider Road". Recently Palashpur has declared as municipal area under Matiranga Pourashava though many modern civic facilities are still to be reached to the many people of the area. A highway from Matiranga to Taindong is passing through Palashpur. Palashpur BDR zone (Bangladesh Rifles Zone) is located at Kheda Chhara.

Geography:
Palashpur is located under Matiranga Upazila (Geographic coordinates of Matiranga Upazila is 23°02′30″N 91°52′30″E / 23.0417°N 91.8750°E and time zone GMT+6). Matiranga Upazila has 14948 units of households and total area of 495.39 km².

Heritage:
There are few numbers of beautiful small hills in Palashpur. A small canal flows behind Palashpur Primary School. There is also a small lake in the area. Alutila, the most beautiful area in the district is only 10 kilometre (approx) far from Palashpur. There is a very beautiful fountain "Richik fountain" in Alutila. This fountain flows through a granite´s hole which is around 500 years old.

Demography:
Palashpur has a population of 1500 of which 66.65% are male and 33.35% are female, 44.70% are tribal and 55.30% are non-tribal. Average population density is 201 per sq km. The literacy rate among the villagers is 15.75%. The main occupations of residents of Palashpur are: Agriculture (51.22%), various labourers (30.45%), commerce (10.54%), service (2%), fishing (1.20%), and other (4.59%).

Religious composition (1991):
Muslim - 47.45%, Buddhist - 35.51%, Hindu - 16.69%, Christian - 0.27% and Others - 0.08%.

Economy:
The main agricultural productions in Palashpur are paddy, sugarcane, onion, garlic, pineapple, betel leaf, vegetables and sweet potato. People in Palashpur also produce fruits like banana, jackfruit, mango, papaya, palm, guava, lemon, litchi, coconut, and guava and so on. There are fisheries, hatcheries, poultry and dairy farms in Palashpur. Palashpur is also a great resource of different types of Woods. In Palashpur there is a large Wood Mill where various types of boxes, cartoons and hardboards are produced.

Natural Animal:
A lot of domestic and wild animals are found in Palashpur. Among the wild animals monkey, few elephants, wild cock, fox, large and poisonous snakes etc are mentionable.

References:
1. "Population Census Wing, BBS." Archived from the original on 2005-03-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20050327072826/ http://www.bangladeshgov.org/mop/ndb/arpc91_v1/tables04.htm Retrieved on November 10 2006.

2. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palashpur

3. Amar Desh: http://amardesh.com/zilla_khagrachhari.php

4. Documents from Matiranga Pourashava
5. Discuss with village peoples
6. Reference from Palashpur village´s founder Mr. Haidar Ali Talukdar.

7. BanglaPedia: http://www.banglapedia.org
8. BDAO.