On a Green Mission

One might wonder as to why would a person take efforts of arranging the plants,hiring manpower to pack them into small packets of saplings,storing and maintaining them and also hiring a person to handle the nursery and attend customers? Well,Dhole gives a simple,logical and deep reasoning. “From the day we are born,we begin using all the natural resources of the earth in different ways,for our varied needs. All of us just keep taking from the earth but never pay it back. I’m just paying back in a small way,” explains Dhole. He says that he earns enough from his business of landscape farming and diverting a small part of his earnings into the nursery is no big deal. “When people take a sapling from me,they also buy a pot from some potter in their area. So atleast someone is earning,” he says,adding that if people buy in bulk,for instance for a school or college,then even the transport person gets paid. “In any case,it is adding to the earnings of some person or the other. Besides,in small steps,I am adding to the greenery,which is a larger purpose,” says Dhole,who stresses that his primary motto is to promote the importance of plants and trees amongst people.

He strictly gives indigenous plants to people and has 250 varieties of indigenous plants. “They are the habitats of different kinds of birds and butterflies and are extremely important for the ecological balance,” says Dhole,who distributed over 50,000 saplings last year to various schools,colleges and institutions. Apart from Pune,he also provides plant saplings in Satara,Nasik and Nagar area. In Pune,his nursery is located at Palm Groves on B T Kawade Road.

“I had read somewhere that in 50 years,one tree gives oxygen worth Rs 17 lakhs,recycled water worth Rs 21 lakhs,controls population worth Rs 34 lakhs,improves soil fertility worth Rs 17 lakhs and food and shelter for animals worth Rs 17 lakhs. So you can imagine,every time we cut a tree,we lose Rs 106 lakhs. I am simply doing the reverse,” says Dhole.