• Follow up meetings with the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Karnataka, Mr AK Varma.
• DCF Palliah was transferred and we had to get in touch with the new DCF, Mr RK Shrivastava. He has been very helpful.
• A meeting was called by the Commissioner of BBMP with their officers, NGOs and other interested parties on May 23rd. Unfortunately, the Commissioner himself got tied up with other matters and could not attend. Meeting was Chaired by Mr Yellappa Reddy, where we presented the Green Dream project.
• Another meeting was called by the Commissioner, but was cancelled due to his having to attend the swearing in ceremony at Raj Bhavan.
• At a third meeting on June 3, we again presented the Green Dream project. He constituted local committees in each zone under the Chairmanship of the Jt Commissioner. Project Green Dream was identified as the key partner in the Mahadevapura zone. In this zone, BBMP wants to plant 30,000 trees.
• Pravir and Gita met the Jt Commissioner, Mr Narayanaswamy (who has now become Additional Commissioner). He has instructed the RFO, Mr Ranganatha Swamy to work with us to “saturate this area”
• We also met the Forest Conservator of BBMP, Mr Shekar, who has promised us seedlings and saplings from their nursery.
• The Kundanahalli lake was identified as the starting point for planting around lakes. We also discovered that the Forest Department is responsible for planting in the Foreshore area of all lakes.
• We started the process of pit digging at the lake using a contractor suggested by the Kadugodi Forest nursery in-charge, Mr Naraynappa. Residents near the lake, led by Dharin Shah from Bharat Nilaya Apts. did the overseeing. Several teething problems arose – the pits were not dug deep enough. Our count of the number of pits and the contractors did not match, many of the pits threw up building rubble when dug.
• The most difficult problem was the stoppage of work by another RFO of the Forest Department, who threatened to file an FIR.
• This had to be sorted out at senior levels – DCF in the forest department, Mr Shrivastava had just taken over and was not available, despite our going to Aranya Bhavan on the 5th and spending practically the entire day.
• Later, however, Vijay Mane and Gita did meet him and sorted out the issue.
• He also visited the lake along with us on 13th and cleared any problems with the RFO.
• On Sunday, the 15th, the first saplings were planted at the Kundanahalli lake. About 100 volunteers.
• We got the first lot of saplings from the donor, Mr Mahadeva Gowda. However, given the challenges of transporting these from Dabbaspet and the cost of transportation, it is perhaps better to buy the seedlings/saplings from BBMP and Forest nurseries.
• For the first plantation around this lake and the following lake near the Purva Parkridge, plants were also obtained from the Kundanahalli Forest Nursery and the BBMP nurseries.
• There are still serious challenges in getting contractors and labour to dig pits. Vijay Mane and Nitesh Shah are addressing these.
• Unfortunately, monsoon still has not reached our area, resulting in our having to find tankers to water the saplings. Dharin and Vineet have been active in organizing this in the planting at the Kundanahalli lake.
• Prabhu M and Pravir Bagrodia have taken on the task of coordinating with all the volunteers.
• Other challenges include co ordinating with the nurseries to get the right seedlings/saplings, arranging an efficient method of transporting them, working out the logistics so they are available when needed, where needed, finding suitable places to store them near the area plantation, tying up tankers to water the plants as necessary etc. Anyone volunteering to help is welcome.
• Some youngsters in the Siddapura village were contacted to help with the project. They have identified areas in the village, talked to the owners, taken pictures and estimated that they can take about 8000 saplings of different species.
• We have also obtained a fairly detailed map of the area from BBMP and marked roads where planting can be done (partial work done, needs to be completed).
• Vijaya Bank has agreed to become a Gold Contributor. We need to identify an area (one of the lakes?) where at least plant a cluser of trees can be planted. They would like to make an event of this. Any help in identifying such a place is welcome.
• ANZ wants to do some physical plantation on a day agreed.
• We also visited the TESCO campus along with Dr Bhatt and identified about 200 trees that can be planted. We are awaiting them to give a date.
• We also put up a stall on World Environment Day at ITPL. The response, unfortunately, was disappointing.
• Kapil Gupta enthused IBM to get involved in Project Green Dream. We had a meeting with a representative from IBM and from an NGO called Trees for Free (with whom IBM has done work in the past). We took them to visit the Sheelavantakere and the main road where we had planted trees in the last two years. More developments awaited.
• Payment gateway on www is still not ready, despite extensive efforts by volunteers on several fronts. We are hopeful this will get ready shortly. Bala Parthasarathy is spearheading this with the help of staff from Convergent India and Thought Focus.
• Bala Parthasarathy, along with others, is also working on our site to make it even more exciting.
• Sheila PremKumar and Parul Shah have taken charge of the coupon books. An intermediate tally would be made shortly.
• Several boys and girls working with a facility management company have been given half day training to generate contributions for trees in public places. They have also been given Tshirts with the GreenDream logo on one side and the Rotary logo (to add to the credibility) on the other.

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