From Filling Potholes To Planting Trees, This 65-Year-Old Bhopal Man Is Safeguarding Our Future

Living by the words, “if you cut trees, it will cut days from your life”, 65-year-old Prabhat Dixit from Bhopal is taking the initiative of planting 1000s of saplings and guarding them until they become self-sufficient.

Prabhat Dixit prepares the saplings at his home, makes tree guards on his own and plants the trees in the barren fields, on the sides of the road, in his colony, on the dividers and other such places where the trees can survive.

Dixit’s Journey

“It all started when I came across a closed fertilizers plant near my office in the year 2008, I was the District Manager in AGRO, Madhya Pradesh which also deals in fertilizers when I saw this barren field of 9 acres. That was my first time when I planted nearly 250 saplings. That open field has now become a greenbelt,” Dixit told The Logical Indian.

“Since then whenever I come across such land which is not in use or lakes which have been dried, I start planting,” he added.

After retiring in 2015, Dixit devoted all his time to the cause. Since he had no financial earnings post retiring, he started preparing tree guards himself.

He is now assisted by his wife every Sunday as they plant saplings in the open grounds, parks, dried water bodies, brook and every possible place they can think of.

Dixit daughter, Swati Gaurav also pitches-in to help her dad in his passion. “My dad dries the seeds of Jamun and mango fruit and keeps it in a bag filled with milk”. These later grow as saplings and are planted in open fields.

Proud of her father’s work, she recalls that she would earlier hear people asking why her dad was doing things that won’t get him anything in return. Nobody recognized what he did. However, they are now taking pride in his work and trying to join hands.

Swati, who is herself an animal activist, says that Dixit also accompanies her for animal welfare. Sharing an incident from his time with animals, she says that Dixit once came across a dog with a tumour and tended to it, despite the dog biting him.

Future plans

Prabhat has appealed the youth to take up the task of planting saplings along with him. He believes that the rapid infrastructure development is taking place across the world at the environment. And if we don’t do something for this cause now we will lose life in future.

Stepping in the future and making it huge Prabhat is now creating a Whatsapp group where he will add the volunteers to accompany him in planting trees.

He often suffers injuries while making tree guards. Being a diabetes patient the wounds take longer to heal. His daughter in her recent Facebook posts had appealed to the public to help them provide tree guards.

The Logical Indian thanks Prabhat Dixit and his family for their service to the society.

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