The mountains in Laya are filled with a variety of incense plants. However, the people of Laya are not famous for incense. That is because Layaps are the gatherers of raw incense plants but never made a name for themselves by producing incense sticks and powders in the market. This is about to change now. Laya Incense and Medicinal Plant Management Group is soon going to start an Incense Processing Unit in the gewog, which will help produce and sell incense powder.
The people in Laya walk for a day and spend nights in the mountains to harvest medicinal plants and leaves to make incense. According to the people, there are some 15 varieties of aromatic plants that are believed to have healing properties.
Sonam Choden, a resident of Laya said, “This is the time to harvest the incense plants. We have to go a little far away from here to collect the plants. We have to walk around one day from Laya. We take horses and carry tents while we head to harvest the plants. We need to have at least two people for the work.”
The harvested incense plants are taken to Gasa, Punakha, Wangdue Phodrang, and at times to Thimphu, where they are either made into incense sticks or powders.
Some earn around Nu 100,000 a year by selling incense plants.
However, despite being the gatherers of raw incense plants, the Layaps buy the finished products from cities and carry them back to their homes.
Laya Incense and Medicinal Plant Management Group’s Chairperson Kinley Dorji said, “so far, our people have been taking their incense plants to Thimphu after collecting from here and bringing back the incense sticks to the village. Hereafter, we are planning to make the products here.”
However, this year, Laya Incense and Medicinal Management Group got a new structure in the gewog, which will be used as an Incense Processing Unit. The new structure was constructed with funds from the Department of Forests and Park Services. It houses machines that will convert the incense plants to powder.
Some 300 residents are registered members of the group. The group will start the processing work soon.
Kinley Dorji said, “we will see how other incense factories and business centres are functioning. And we will do the packing and labelling works accordingly. So far, we have finished setting up our processing machines here and also formed our group. We will start the processing works soon.”
“I am sure that this incense processing unit would benefit us immensely. Otherwise, we have to take the incense plant to the market. Moreover, we cannot sell it at once, it takes lots of our time,” said Sonam Choden.
The members can either choose to sell the finished products themselves or the group will help them market the products. The group is planning to buy one reliable processing machine since the existing machines do not have enough capacity to produce incense powder in huge quantities.
Changa Dorji, Gasa
Edited by Sangay Chezom
