As per guide lines sent by the official of Guinness Book of World Records, the observers examined whether the eight codified conditions put forward by the GBWR were followed in letter and spirit.

Soutaki village offers a panoramic view as it is located along the National Highway no. 37 in North Salmara Sub-division and surrounded by two wetlands, the Kujia River and Mahadev hills under Bongaigaon district.

It took one month for the civil administration of North Salmara to prepare and ensure that everything fell into place during the mega event of environment protection.
Sub-divisional civil administrator, M.S. Manibannan informed that a detailed plan had been chalked out to complete this gigantic mission within 24 hours.
Special trainers were called for from Tamil Nadu to train the villagers as to how fast and swiftly sapling could be planted accurately in the shortest possible time, he added.
Wood based, fruit bearing and medicinal trees have been included among 3 lakh saplings which include 10,000 Jackfruit trees, 10,000 Olive trees, 5,000 Silikha trees,10,000 Arjun trees, 5,000 Lichi trees, 10,000 Sal trees etc..

Cost of the total project has been Rs. 34 lakhs and was funded under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) scheme-2007-08 and in the meantime, 210 bighas of land has been face lifted  and all the participants have been given identity cards, Manibannan informed.

Manibannan informed that apart from all these preparations, the project of massive plantation received overwhelming response from the officials from Guinness Book of World Records who consented to the go ahead.

In order to examine the plantation programme, Principal investigator of  Primate Research Cenre of  North East  India , Jihosuo  Biswas, Coordinator of World Wide Fund For Nature-India for Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, Surajit Borah, senior lecturer of Sandikoi College, Pranab Buzarbaruah and secretary of Dibru - Saikhowa Wild-life Society, Joynal Abedin  acted  as independent observers’, Manibannan informed.

All the independent observers while interacting with media persons expressed satisfaction over the completion of the programme fulfilling the conditions set down by the GBWR.

Surajit Bora said that his observations about the programme would be sent to the GBWR body soon. ‘But as far as the programme is concerned it is undoubtedly an up hill task taken up by the North Salmara civil administrator and completed with great success’, Borah said.

Joynal Abedin while lauding the efforts of the people and administrator said that he did not know whether this achievement will be recorded in GBWR or not but this effort of the people would always be remembered and will continue to inspire people in other parts of Assam to take such tasks to protect the environment.

Elated with the successful plantation programme, Jihosuo Biswas said the records made in the history are breakable but the zeal and enthusiasm shown by the villagers in the programme would never be broken.

Pranab Buzarbaruah said that it was nice to see that people from this part of the country could threaten a record made by the villagers of Magapattinam. ‘We will file reports separately and send them to GBWR and wait for the result to come out. But I am confident that a milestone has been achieved and a new record has been set’, Buzarbaruah said.

Bijoy Kr. Sharma