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A flock of four drones have taken off in the KBR Park, a designated national park right in the heart of Hyderabad, with a payload of seedballs to be sprayed across the 140 hectare area.
Made of mud and natural nutrients, a seed ball contains seeds of multiple plant species. At the KBR park, the seed balls contain the seeds of five species including tamarind and custard apple.
“We are going to toss about 1.50 lakh seed balls in the park in the next few days. As we drop them, we record the latitude and longitude to help us map and monitor the area later using satellite images,” Prem Kumar Vislawath, Co-Founder of the startup, has said.
Bahubali fame Daggubati Rana, who is a brand ambassador for the initiative, was present as the drones took off on Friday morning.
Afforestation programme
The drone tech company, which set an ambitious target of planting one billion plants under the Hara Bahara initiative, is in talks with different State Governments to launch the programme in the respective States.
“We have got the mandate from the Telangana Government to drop the seed balls in 150-500 hectares of forest land in each of the 33 districts in Telangana. In all, we will be covering about 12,000 hectares with 50 lakh seed balls in the State,” Prem said.
Telangana has earmarked a 12,000 ha forest area for the startup to drop the seed balls.
Claiming that it is the first such initiative in the country, he said the startup is involving the community in the afforestation programme. “We are taking the help of self-help groups and non-governmental organisations to prepare the seed balls. We use the seeds that are native to a particular region,” he said.
“As they fly over barren and empty forest lands, they drop the seed balls and turn them into lush green abode of trees,” he said.
The process involves a field survey and mapping of the terrain to understand the ecosystem and demarcate the areas for tossing the seed balls.
Monitoring
After spraying the seed balls, the dronetech company monitors the area covered by the drones by comparing periodically them with the images taken by satellites.
“You can see the comparative changes in the area,” he said.