Venue for Drive 1 to 4 and 6th: Pedyacha Bhairoba Mountain, Shukrawar Peth, Satara.
Venue for 5 th drive: A farmland near Kondwe
1st drive (12/6/2010) : 40 Nilmohar ,40 Raintree ,20 Shisav
2nd drive (19/6/2010) : 50 Nilmohar
3rd drive (26/6/2010) : 25 Kadilimbu,25 awala
4th drive (27/6/2010) : 25 Kadilimbu,25 Jambul
5th drive (3/7/2010) : 10 mango,10 Jambul,15 awala, 15 tamarind
6th drive (4/7/2010) : 50 Kadilimbu
Me and tree campaign this year had a very shaky start. People who had committed on big sum of donations had backed out last moment and people who had been counted for labour and time suddenly got busy, the only thing in abundance was the will to plant trees and that was the game changer.
With a target of planting a minimum 500 trees, I had estimated a budget based on last year‘s expenditure to be around Rs.10, 000/- :: 500*Rs.10/pit for digging: 5,000 + Rs 5,000(for saplings fertilsers, transport and miscellaneous expenditure) but was proved wrong just like intelligent trade analyst are dumbfounded by the mysterious stock markets.
The site of tree plantation is deprived of soil cover , it contains only murum as called in Marathi, in English it can be referred as soft rock. So the cost per pit demanded by the daily wage workers was higher than could have predicted, they started with Rs.70 per pit dug and after bargain came to last price of Rs.50/pit which was completely unacceptable, coz it would escalate the pit digging cost of Rs.25,000/- for 500 pits. So finally a decision was made to dig the pits and plant the saplings on our own.
Till 11th June 2010 with only Rs.2,000/- collected thousand each from Gyanendra Singh and Shashank Kothari, people backing out last moment ,the mammoth task of planting 500 trees on a barren soft rocked mountain seemed next to impossible.
With doubts we began the first drive on Saturday 12th June 2010 with 100 saplings to plant. We had two new guys Nilesh Deshpande and Vinay Patil joining the “Me and Tree” who were determined to take ahead “Me and Tree” in spite of the obstacles but I doubted their conviction until the ground work really started, but I was happy that they proved my doubts wrong and brought two more guys Prashant Nade and Aftab Bagwan who are equally sincere and dedicated towards the cause. All of them have been associated from the 1st to the 350th sapling and this year’s campaign wouldn’t have been possible without them. Along with them Rohan Shelar and Azim Momin also have played pivotal role in the campaign this year. Rajesh Kasar, Shailesh Ghorpade, Prathmesh Ghorpade, Satyajit Gadekar and Manoj Deshmukh helped in the campaign at isolated instances but surely their help was noteworthy. And last but not the least Mr. Santosh Kamble was important link as he provided logistical support throughout the campaign.
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