Shweta Mehta Sen

<hr>&nbsp;Setting up the credit rating&nbsp;agency CRISIL, in 1987, was no&nbsp;mean feat for Pradip Shah, so&nbsp;it was not surprising that many&nbsp;countries approached him for&nbsp;know-how. “I helped Israel, for&nbsp;which they honoured me with a&nbsp;garden of 100 trees in my name&nbsp;and gave me a certificate for it.&nbsp;That was the origin of my idea for&nbsp;Grow-Trees,” says Shah.&nbsp;When his son was thinking of&nbsp;starting a business of his own,&nbsp;Shah told him to start the unique&nbsp;tree-gifting venture instead, and&nbsp;promised to support his business&nbsp;idea. At current count, Grow-Trees&nbsp;has planted over 6 lakh trees&nbsp;across the country and is aiming&nbsp;far higher. “Wishful thinking is that&nbsp;we plant a million trees a year and&nbsp;someday plant a billion a year. In&nbsp;Israel, they plant 2.5 million trees&nbsp;per year. Their population is a&nbsp;fraction of ours, yet they manage&nbsp;it. We have a long way to go,” says&nbsp;Shah, who realizes that his small&nbsp;company may soon have to invest&nbsp;in advertising. He admits, “We are&nbsp;amazed at the response from the&nbsp;youth, although we realise that&nbsp;age group cannot always afford&nbsp;even Rs 85 (the cost of planting&nbsp;one tree). The younger working&nbsp;class has shown a lot of interest,&nbsp;but many don’t know about us.”&nbsp;What is heartening, however,&nbsp;is the senior citizens who plant as&nbsp;many as 10 trees a day, without&nbsp;wanting anything in return. Shah is&nbsp;also pleased to see the messages&nbsp;people share on their eTree&nbsp;Certificates — from ‘May your&nbsp;love grow as these trees grow’&nbsp;on weddings to ‘You have passed&nbsp;away, but these trees will live on&nbsp;as a memoriam’ as condolences.&nbsp;Shah brings up the example of&nbsp;Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s&nbsp;speech at the Paris Climate&nbsp;Conference, where he promised to&nbsp;regenerate our forests to absorb&nbsp;2.5 billion tonnes of carbon&nbsp;dioxide. “The government is&nbsp;making an effort, but we need to&nbsp;supplement it. I’ve got calls from&nbsp;Gujaratis in Portugal who wanted&nbsp;to plant trees after reading about&nbsp;us in a Gujarati magazine. They’ve&nbsp;probably wanted to plant trees&nbsp;since childhood, but never had&nbsp;the opportunity. Where in the big&nbsp;cities can plant trees&nbsp;these days? You’ll need so many&nbsp;permissions,” reasons Shah.&nbsp;Not surprisingly, most of the&nbsp;projects undertaken by Grow-&nbsp;Trees are in areas where poor&nbsp;tribes can benefit from the job of&nbsp;planting them, or in sanctuaries&nbsp;and wildlife habitats. For instance,&nbsp;a sponsor came on board to have&nbsp;1,00,000 trees planted in the&nbsp;forests of Kanha and Pench in the&nbsp;first year, and returned to plant&nbsp;another 1,00,000 the following&nbsp;year. In Kumbhalgarh, a 40,000-&nbsp;tree project for sloth bears was&nbsp;completed because rocky terrain&nbsp;prevents the growth of termite&nbsp;mounds, which the bears rely&nbsp;on for protein intake. Scientists&nbsp;studied the kinds of plants they&nbsp;turn to instead for nutrition to&nbsp;figure out the ideal mix of species.&nbsp;Similarly, Grow-Trees has taken&nbsp;up a project of 1,00,000 trees in&nbsp;Sitamata Wildlife Sanctuary in&nbsp;Rajasthan, where 25,000 trees are&nbsp;designated for the endangered&nbsp;Indian Giant Flying Squirrel. It also&nbsp;helps that the Chintamani project&nbsp;has inadvertently been a boon&nbsp;for another extinction-threatened&nbsp;species, the Kolar Leaf Nosed Bat.&nbsp;At the outset, Shah was&nbsp;clear that he wanted an easily&nbsp;accessible and mobile-friendly&nbsp;website. “We are social creatures&nbsp;who must greet people on&nbsp;occasions, and even to condole or&nbsp;remember someone. So the idea&nbsp;was that planting a tree with us&nbsp;should cost the same as buying&nbsp;a greeting card,” he explains, adding that financial stability was&nbsp;another concern. “We decided&nbsp;that I could support the company&nbsp;up to a point, but it had to become&nbsp;financially viable. We drew some&nbsp;money from my own funds and&nbsp;started with a rate of Rs 50 per&nbsp;tree. Only about three years back,&nbsp;the team managed to return all my&nbsp;interest-free loans, and are now&nbsp;running on a self-financed model.”

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The man who set up CRISIL and HDFC Bank in India wants to plant a billion trees per year with his venture, Grow-Trees.