Planting trees is his passion

By planting one tree in your life you can contribute as much as Rs 6-7 crore towards environment protection! Calculations by 53-year-old Muralidhar Belkhode, popularly called as the ' Tree Man of Wardha', reveal that a single tree like Neem, which has an average life of 50 years, releases at least a cylinder full of oxygen daily and absorbs enough carbon dioxide gas to do environment cleaning operations worth Rs 7.5 crore for at least half a century.


Balkhode, whose biggest mission in life since 1990 is planting trees and maintaining them, has planted one lakh trees till now in Wardha. Drawing inspiration from SN Subba Rao from Bangalore, who takes up projects for youth across India, Belkhode began the mission by planting a tree in his own house. Now all 40 houses in his colony, Nisarg Nagari, have a tree each, which are maintained by the Nisarg Sewa Samiti, the organization he manages. The person planting the tree has to spend just Rs 700 once for the tree guard needed to protect the plant.


Though Belkhode is the man behind the greenery in Wardha, the initiative now has become a movement. Now, people at Wardha miss no opportunity to plant a tree. Dial 07152-243183 and the volunteers from the samiti will be present at the spot within ten minutes with a sapling of the caller's choice. The samiti usually suggests that neem, karanj, bakul, banyan, amaltash, amla, which have both medicinal value and provide enough shade, be planted.


The organization promotes planting trees on special occasions like birthdays or marriage anniversary. Each tree is give a suitable name - smruti (remembrance), janamdin (birthday), vivah (marriage), dehdan (death day).


Belkhode also promotes the concept through drawing competition in schools and colleges. Schools promoting the concept are certified as 'green schools'. His employers, the Bank of Baroda, too has sponsored tree guards.


The district administration too has been supportive. The hillock at the city's entrance from Nagpur direction has 1000 trees. "The movement gained momentum with the support of collector Milind Mhaiskar nine years back," says Belkhode. "Then there was freedom fighter Madhukar Parsole who gave Rs 5000 each month for two years out of his Rs 7000 pension. It was used to plant 125 trees in front of Bapu ashram."


"Wherever there's infrastructural development happening, planting trees has to be made compulsory by law," says Belkhode.