By Gopi Gyawali, Nawalparasi, Dec. 9: Study of the biodiversity of Kakarpatta, the Buddha era town, now located at Sarawal Rural Municipality's Jawa area in West Nawalparasi district has started.

Sudip Paudel, managing director of Lumbini Agro Lab Pvt. Ltd, said that study was being conducted under the direction of the Sarawal Rural Municipality as a garden of Kol Tree and a pond that looked ancient wetland place were found in the area.

As archeological study has established that capital of Buddha's maternal uncle's kingdom, the Kolya kingdom, was ancient Devdaha and that it is now at Panditpur in Ramgram Municipality of West Nawalparasi, study has been going on in this area in the estimate that there could be many other ancient townships in the area.

Interest of researchers grew in this area after Sarawal Rural Municipality declared Jawa area as the Buddha era Kakarpatta town.

Radheshyam Chaudhari, Chairman of Sarawal RM, said that importance of biodiversity study of the area was increased also because the area had endangered Kol Tree and wetland place in the area.

Biodiversity study will include recording the status of Kol Tree, their number in this area and whether they are found in other places or not, local name of the Kol tree and its traditional use.

Study will also be focused on diversity of birds, butterflies and fishes that are found in the area of ancient Buddha pond which lies a few meters away from the garden of Kol tree.

Buddha pond stretches in over five bigha of land that include Jagadispur pond and wetland area near the Narayani River. The locals say migratory birds all the way from Russia also come to this are during winter.

The first phase of study of the biodiversity of this archeologically important place will be over by March. Letter has been sent to the Department of Archeology for carrying out archeological study in the area, according to the officials at the local level and that the Sarawal RM has allocated rive lakh rupees for conducting the study of the biodiversity of the area.