Mangalore Bicycle Club (MBC) celebrated its third Vanamahotsava in a unique way by planting saplings at seven households in different parts of the city to create awareness among people on conservation.
The club began celebrating Vanamahotsava since 2016 with the first being at Prakash Offset Printers premises, Baikampady Industrial Area, and the second on the Tannirbhavi beach stretch.
To mark the club’s seventh anniversary, members chose to plant about 10 saplings each at seven households. They picked saplings of fruit-bearing trees and those that had medicinal properties. The choice of plant was given to the owners of households depending on the size and availability of area. Radhesh Bhat from Tapovan, Kinnigoli, who is an NITK graduate and a passionate environmentalist, sponsored saplings from his organic farm.
About 20 members of the club started from Lal Bagh early Sunday morning amidst rains and pedalled about 30 km covering seven locations. They planted Bilva Patra at Kadri-Mallikatte, Red Sandalwood at Chilimbi, Bimbuli at Matadakani, Putranjiva at another nearby location, Ramaphala at BGS Institutions, almond and starfruit at Padavinangady and teak at IGP’s Bunglow, Mary Hill.
Consultant urologist Pritham Sharma, retired banker Subraya Nayak, businessman Lakshman Kamath, IGP (Western Range) Arun Chakravarthy, BGS Institutions, land developer K.C. Alva and interior designer Joel G. Fernandes provided space at their premises for planting.