EVENTS

"When is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When is the next best time to plant a tree? NOW This is old saying but a 100% TRUE when it comes to planting trees."

In last few years, due to the changing global environment even the cities earlier known for their great climate have started getting affected. Throughout the world it’s normal these days to experience the unexpected in terms of excess heat, soaring temperatures, heavy rains and floods etc. We, the humans, being busy in our daily, so called hectic and fast paced life forget to acknowledge that we are losing out on our natural resources very quickly. It’s time for this generation to hold themselves responsible and act on it so that the next generation is left with a better future.

The Ovid team at T/DG has the culture of celebrating monthly events on a regular basis to increase the collaboration and bonding across teams. And, we do have an outing event on a half-yearly basis. This time while planning an outing, the Ovid Events Committee tried to associate it with a social cause. It did not take long for the committee to find out the right social cause - Tree Plantation, and unanimously agree on it.

We started looking for NGOs or groups who could help or guide us. While doing so we also considered checking with the Forest department officials if they can provide any help. To our surprise, we got a full-fledged outlined solution from them. The Maharashtra government had targeted 2 crore saplings to be planted till July 1, 2016. For this, the Forest Department had done all the arrangements like digging pits, planting saplings and taking care of trees post plantation and we just needed to plant trees, as many as we could. So, we decided to be part of this activity and support the transformation of our region to green.

Amongst places suggested, Ovid team decided to plant trees at “Old Katraj Ghat” as part of the Tree Plantation drive. It was a good outing place as well. We got very good response from our team which was full of energy and participated with enthusiasm in this activity.

Ovidians left for Katraj in the morning around 10 AM from the T/DG premises with lot of enthusiasm and positive energy. After reaching Katraj around 11 AM, we got the biggest surprise, thanks to the overwhelming response from all the Punekars. They had already planted around 20000 trees and we were left with no saplings and place to plant in that area. We then checked with forest officials for any alternate location and as luck would favor our cause, we got one in the nearby hills, just above the new Katraj tunnel on the Pune-Bangalore highway. The real challenge for all the volunteers with cars. They had to drive their cars on a rough track, all the way to the top of the hill above tunnel which was around 2-3 kms. Once we reached there, the view of the surroundings as well as that of the Pune city was awesome.

On top of the hill, we could locate the saplings provided by the Forest department. Each one of us took a few of these, plus not to miss out, equipment required to dig. But, to our utter surprise, the challenge continued. We could not locate any nearby land with already dug pits for us to straight away plant these saplings as many Punekars had reached a lot before us and had done their noble deeds of plantation. So, our team members had to walk a few more kilometers in the surrounding hills to identify areas where they could do the plantation. Also, a few members suggested we find other areas where plantation was not done and we dig out on our own and do the plantation. Brimming with enthusiasm and energy, the team planted around 100 saplings.

We were done with our plantation at around 1.30 pm and then went to “Vilas Restaurant” in Khed Shivapur for our authentic Maharashtrian lunch buffet. The delicious lunch was then followed by the birthday celebration and team building activities. The team had a great time over there and enjoyed playing dumb charades.

Finally, all members left for T/DG and reached office around 4 PM with satisfaction and a proud feeling of being part of noble cause.

What a day it was – filled with lots of enthusiasm, positive energy, fun, adventure and a great lunch!

Thanks to the Forest department officials, T/DG Admin team, all the team members for their participation and a big thanks to all event-committee members to make this a huge success!