One lakh saplings with IRCON, from Bareilly to Haryana

By the end of 2016 the Vriksh Mitra–Gram Mitra Abhiyan had planted more than 2.5 lakh fruit saplings on the strength of volunteers and individual donors. On 26 December 2016 it signed its first agreement with a company: IRCON International Limited, the public-sector railway builder, agreed to fund 1 lakh saplings under its CSR programme.

The saplings were matched to the soil. Bareilly district received peach — 20,000 saplings on 26 January 2017 and 15,000 each on 28 and 29 January — which went to 7,731 families in 84 villages. In Haryana, 50,000 guava, ber, lemon, pomegranate and amla saplings went to more than 100 villages of Hisar, Jind and Sonipat in February.

The method was simple and participatory. Villages were chosen where Foundation volunteers were active and where villagers had written asking for trees. Families were identified with the panchayat and asked to dig their pits three days before delivery, and local distribution teams were briefed on how to plant and care for each species. On 29 March 2017 a team from IRCON's CSR division walked through villages in Bareilly to see the young plants for themselves.