Gujarat based Vijay Dobariya is on a mission to make his state green. He has already planted 1.5 million trees and ensured that they grow properly by nurturing them with a fleet of 600 full-time personnel.
Doing philanthropy at a personal level is one thing. But, here is a simple man who has built a huge
corporate-like management where a staff of 600 works full-time towards the “Green Mission.” Businessman Dobariya, 38, hails from a small hamlet in Gujarat. In 2014 he felt like doing something to give back to society. Zeroing down on the idea of planting trees, he chose his
small-time native village Fatehpur, for the activity. After planting 1,000 trees around the village, he
started taking care of these plants and also deployed a water tanker to water them. On getting immense satisfaction from the activity he extended it to five nearby villages and later to the entire sub-region.
Engaged in the business of agriculture medicines, Dobariya spent a few million rupees from his own funds towards his tree-plantation activity. After that Dobariya started getting tremendous support from people.
As per Dobariya, “only planting the trees is not enough, according to our research each plant needs to be nurtured for the first four years like a child. Post 4-year period the trees are strong enough to survive on their own. After 7 years of starting the activity, today we have 1.5 million trees planted so far, with 250,000 of them in the last 12 months. The important thing is that we are 100% sure that each and every plant is standing at its place right now and is being taken proper care of.”
Dobariya under the banner of Sadbhavna Trust employs 600 people only to plant and nurture the trees. The trust has its own JCBs, mini-trucks, 120 tractors with water tankers engaged in the activity. The trees are watered regularly for the first four years. Each tree is given a metal tree guard and a green-net. The net of each tree is changed every 12 months. All plants are supplied with fertilizer once a month. Not only that, the staff keeps a complete check of each and every plant. If one plant dries or is destroyed due to some reason a team from Sadbhavna Trust will go there immediately and plant a new one at that place. With a monthly expense of Rs 15 million (GBP 150,000), Dobariya has seen over a spending of Rs 700 million (GBP 7 million) so far for planting and nurturing of trees. While donors are coming forward to donate, Dobariya has also donated millions of rupees from his own funds.
The places where trees are planted include 300,000 on road-sides and road-dividers in Rajkot city in
addition to few other cities and towns. Trees have been planted on dividers of over 300 km of motorway connecting major cities. These trees are also regularly nurtured. In a campaign where they planted a tree per house, Dobariya has been instrumental in planting trees in 71,000 courtyards of houses in Rajkot and Jamnagar.
The state government has recently recognised the efforts of Dobariya and awarded him with
‘Vana Pandit’ award, for exceptional contribution in the field of protection of environment and related activities on a long term basis.
