40,000 saplings planted in Mahindra World City in single day

CHENNAI: For Lata Phadse, a resident of Nasik who is now living at Mahindra World City in Chennai, planting a sapling brought back memories of working in her farmland in her hometown. “We are from an agricultural family, so we know the value of a plant. We are very happy we have done our bit for the betterment of the environment today,” she said.
She was among the thousands of people who painted the MWC Chennai campus green on Sunday. Together, they planted around 40,000 saplings as part of the Hero-TOI green drive on Sunday alone.

Since September 23, the volunteers including students and techies have planted about 1.5 lakh saplings.

“In the last six days, we planted 90,000 saplings and the remaining were planted today. We were really happy with the turn out,” said Vijay Sethi, CIO, head of HR and CSR, Hero MotoCorp Ltd.

He said, “This is the biggest gift we can give to our next generation. So far, we have planted eight lakh trees in the last two years. Our aim is to increase the per capita tree cover which is just 28 per person right now,” he said.

The saplings were planted on 140 acres of land allotted by the MWC Chennai. Nearly 40 gardeners were appointed to tend to the saplings until they grow into trees to ensure sustainability.

The mood at the drive was upbeat as everyone – young and old – were equally excited that they were going to be part of a greener world. Families got together to plant saplings.

Little Saranya said she would ensure that the tree she planted was watered every day.

Malathi R, a 33-year-old techie and environmentalist, said it’s not just Vardah and floods that we need to compensate for. “When this MWC was built, lots of trees were chopped. We need to compensate for that too,” she said.

P Vijayan Janardhanan, business head (Residential) of MWC, said in cyclone Vardah, the campus lost 3,500 trees. “Such plantation drives not just helps reduce carbon footprint but creates small urban forests that bring back the biodiversity including birds, insects and reptiles back to the urban areas,” he said.

Several environmentalist groups such as Aintini also took part in the drive.

“We got to know about it so we decided to be part of it. We will plant as many saplings as possible,” said M Muthuveeran, a techie.

While the mood was upbeat since morning, music and cultural programmes only added to the excitement of people. P Ponniah, district collector, Kancheepuram was the chief guest of the event.