We plant a lot of trees, and finally a few survive. The article presents a possible approach to have a high survival rate of planted trees.

1. Planting Trees to Grow, June 2018
Planting Trees to Grow
Over the past decade, several millions of trees have been planted in India. Do you really
see a significant impact? NO. Most of the plantations have failed due to obvious reasons.
Have you thought- ‘why’? In fact, that is because, most of the plantation schemes were
impractical. The aim was towards planting trees and not towards growing trees. Of course,
some people/organizations did a great job, and the trees planted by them are growing to
make earth happier.
Let us imagine a case where a student wants to get good marks in examinations, and we all
say he should study 6 hours, 8 hours or 10 hours daily. But, he has no school, no proper
books, there is no good teacher available to solve his problems, there is no information
what topics he should study. Do you think he would be able to pass the examinations?
Exactly the same thing is happening with plantations. We plant trees, but forget to take
care properly in the next phase. Sometimes, we water more. Sometimes, we do not water
at all. Sometimes, we need to provide fertilizers, nutrients, or pesticides etc., but we don’t
know how much. Some time back, I visited a place where 800 plants were planted two
years back, but now only around 250 are surviving, as the area is severely infected with
termites, and the person did not know what to do, as he was busy in his business of
fabrication.
Obviously, we need professional approach. But the question is- How?
My concept is having a professional company, which gets permissions from concerned
departments, plants trees; take care of the planted trees for say three years, to ensure
each and every plantation results in a full grown tree. The cost of tree plantation, including
the cost of plant, cost of transportation to site, plantation, provision of tree guard,
watering on a regular basis, providing necessary dosage of fertilizers, pesticides etc.,
maintaining infrastructure like water tanker, trucks for transportation etc., or whatever
else is required for the same; may be worked out on per tree basis. The company may
collect that amount from nature lovers. In return, each nature lover gets a certificate/UID
for the tree planted, as well as regular periodical updates about the health of that tree.
Let’s have a look at the economic part also. The approximate cost of planting and
maintaining a tree includes say Rs.100 for plant and fertilizer cost, Rs.400 for tree guard,
Rs.500 per year for watering and monitoring and Rs.500 for other expenses like for
maintaining records, contingency, marketing etc. Now add Rs.500 as profit by this
professional company. This way, the total cost works out around Rs.3000 or so. Now, the
nature lover agrees to pay Rs.500 per tree every six months, and the plantation company
after plantation gives a certificate of plantation, giving exact plant location, nature of plant,
photographs taken after every three/six months to its customer. The working of the
company can be approved or periodically monitored by the forest department or similar
other government department. At the end of three years, a thank you note to customer is

2. Planting Trees to Grow, June 2018
given and the chapter is closed. If the customer is not satisfied with the performance of
tree growing company in between, he may stop paying money. Similarly if the customer
does not pay money regularly, a new guardian for the tree may be searched by the
company. To avoid two customers paying for the same tree, each tree may be assigned a
unique code.
Some of you may argue that Rs.3000 or so for a single tree is too much, but believe me,
this is just an indicative figure to have a clear idea in our minds that planting trees need
time, efforts and money, if the real intention of planting is to have a full grown tree in
future. Not only this, when more and more plants are grown, this figure may come down.
Rest depends on the plantation company if it can offer a lower cost per plant. Our final aim
should be to assure that the plant finally grows, and there is a significant reduction in
mortality of trees planted.
The upcoming plantation companies may find a business opportunity in the approach, and
I look forward to see a greener India.
By-
D K Singhal
deveshksinghal@gmail.com