Clean Earth Movement

वसुंधरा स्वछता अभियान

The Clean Earth Movement lost one of our prime movers last Saturday. Mr Vasant Takalkar was involved with the movement from its inception. He had taught us his Continuous Contour Trenching technique of plantation on hills. This method, which we have followed to the best of our abilities on Baner hill is one of the main reasons for the success of our plantation.

During his term of 37 years in the State Forest Service he was responsible for greening several villages and changing lives of the tens of thousands of villagers by increasing their water tables and green cover. His technique for afforestation on hills was a particular specialty. He estimated that he was directly responsible for planting over fifty million trees all over Maharashtra using this technique with a very high rate of survival.

Even after retiring a few years ago he did not give up his work. He has guided several NGOs in and around Pune to the very last. Literally! He had his heart attack last week during his regular Saturday morning visit to Chaturshringi hill where he was deeply involved with the Green Hills Group in a major afforestation effort above the temple.

His guidance to us was not just technical. He was a regular visitor to Baner Hill right up to the end. Placing his arm around our shoulders he would gently but firmly point out where we were going wrong. He was a perfectionist and would spend hours training various of our members.

He will be greatly missed but never forgotten. His spirit lives on in the millions of trees that he has helped bring to life.

It was a great moment for the volunteers of the Vasundhara group on the auspicious day of Gudipadwa, (16th Mar 09) water tank of 25,000 litres capacity was completed and commissioned for the service of Vasundhara. The new water tank work is an excellent example of a fantastic Team Work and devotion. The efforts of all known and unknown volunteers have made it possible.

It was named as "Shivatirtha" water tank meaning a tank with a holy water used by and for Lord Shiva.

Here are few snaps of the way this work was completed.

The pipe for water in the Milan tank (near the base of the hill) to reach the newly built Shivatirtha tank (on the top of the hill) being layed out.

The submersible pump being commissioned...

Pipe Laying work in progress...

Plastering work in progress... and the Happy Volunteers... :)

Finally, the tank building work got completed. hurrey!!!

This water tank is now quenching the thurst of all the plants on the top and nearby area. It is also able to transfer the water to other tanks on the hill through the pipes. Volunteers carrying the pipes for that purpose in the below snap.

Cheers to all! :) Truely a great team work!!

Great going Vasundhara... Keep it up!!!

Posing for a photo before heading back after a good day of watering!

May 3rd was a very hot day. I had hoped to go earlier in the morning hoping to avoid the sun but reached only around 8pm. One group had already watered and left. There were a few at the new well we are building at the base. This will be a large one which will be charged using tankers. We will be moving the pump as well from the current location at Mr Kalmadi's house. 

The new small well on the top is almost done. We are going to need names for all the wells that are coming up :)

I took this low shot of the gulmohur (?) juxtaposed with the small flowering plant to show the health of our plants. Many of them look especially beautiful with fresh green leaves glinting in the sun.

The big well on the top has made it really easy to fill up cans and store water. Water is rarely a constraint now and hence even with smaller groups we are able to cover a large area quickly. 

There were not many people today and many had come and gone earlier, but you can see everyone spread around the small temple which was where we were concentrating today. There were four members of the Gayatri Parivar (Neeta Thorat, Rajesh Rajan, Sameer Maheshwari and Anil Parashar)  who had come. At least one member from their group has been coming to the hill every Sunday now for the past several weeks. Payal Gupta and Priyanka Arora both in IT and living in Nigdi also joined. Payal is going to start a tree plantation group in Nigdi along the Pavana.

Other groups had already watered the other parts of the top and on the way down we drew water from the base well to quickly water some parts near the Tukai temple which Sandeep was covering and he needed some more people to help out.

We had a great day today. I met Sriram, Anish and Vikas Bhir coming down at 8am. They had started early at 6:30am to beat the heat and finished most of the area near the Tukai temple and the initial plateau area near the broken Sintex tank. Their idea was good, many of us are planning to start the watering earlier during the summer months.

I took their cans and went on ahead to the big tank where there was about 50 people including about 20 children. Some of the children was in the tank filling the cans faster than people could water! Many others including several 7-9 year olds were carrying five liter cans, some walking pretty quickly with two cans!

A contingent from Riviresa with several children came and participated very strongly. Thanks to them for the fresh cut fruit supplied at the end along with the delicious Poha that came from Hanumant Murkute's house.

I think almost 100% of the hill was covered today because of the large number of people and the efficient work done by them. Hope we get the same response through the summer months. The saplings must surely be hoping so!