About Vruksha Prem Seva Trust in Fulara Mill Godown, Furniture Gali, Raj Marg, Upleta Dist.Rajkot,Gujarat,INDIA., Upleta

The “Rain God” as popularly known in Saurashtra region, Shri.Premjibhai Patel of Vruksha Prem Seva Trust was a prosperous businessman happily living in Mumbai. One fine morning of 1967 he got a letter stating efforts of a shepherd of Africa who planted seeds ignorantly and turned barren land into forest. He planted this thought in his mind and instead of planting trees through saplings, he shaped idea of planting trees.

On his visit to his home town, he started enquiring with oldies about the trees. He was told that once upon a time there was a forest cover from Gir to Dwarka. Premjibhai was shocked to hear and asked about where about of trees. It was understood that trees were used up for fuel. He vowed to make Saurashtra lush green once again through planting of fuel wood.

A net work of buyers and sellers was set up by him. He compiled a list of seed collectors, buyers and sellers. It was understood that ultimately someone has to use these seeds. The ideology was simple, seeds of trees are meant for plantation by someone. He collected 550 tons of seeds of various trees like Presopis Julliflora(100 tons),local trees like Neem, Karanj, Palash,Aawal, Grass seeds etc . This entire project was self financed (Rs. 50,00,000 covering 1,882 villages) A specially designed machine was developed by the local engineers of Rajkot. This machine gave an additional boost to his mission, seed were purchased and stored in godowns but manual plantation through students or local people was difficult.

The seed spraying through machine was so popular that even Indian Railways experimented spraying seeds alongside the railway track. Once again the ideology was down to earth, Premjibhai questioned himself,” Who has created forest?” It was through natural process of seeds falling from trees, transportation through natural elements, animals etc, His method of seed spraying gave unbelievable results. Today the problem of fuel wood is sorted out from the region. The green cover is increased and the entire ecology has been changed.It is strongly suggested to promote seed spraying method through the world. Ex President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam proudly speaks about Premjibhai, A man who has planted more than 10 million trees, single handedly.