Hyderabad, October 01, 2021: The Drone Technology has come to the rescue to save the planet and fight deforestation said film star, Baahubali and Aranya movie Fame Daggubati Rana while interacting with the media at KBR Park in Hyderabad on the occasion of Seedcopter of Marut Drones taking up seed-firing of 1.5 lakh seed balls on Friday.
Seedcopter has taken up the Drone planting of 1.5 lakh seed balls of native species like Custard Apple (Seethaphal) Gooseberry (Usirikaya), Tamarind, Bamboo and Peepul (Raavi). The job of seed firing of 1.5 lakh seed balls was completed today.
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Drones are a new hope. We saw drones fighting the forest fire in Australia. In our city, in our neighbourhood, we are today witnessing startupMarut Drones giving us hope. New hope of tree planting drones which is being done for the first time in India. We have seen and read news of such things happening only in the west. It is happening now in our city. We must be proud of it. The tree-planting drones are a new hope to reforest the degraded forests, he added. Because they can plant vast areas very rapidly. Drones are new weapons in bringing back green cover into our lives, he said.
Besides this, Seedcopter is involving the local community. The seed balls required for drone seeding are prepared by self-help groups, local communities in rural areas. This is engaging rural folks in meaningful participation in reforestation, Mr. Rana added and appreciated the efforts of Marut Drones, ITE&C Department and Forest Department of Govt of Telangana.
Mr. Rana put the seed balls into the drone and kickstarted the operation. We all are blessed to have a lovely green cluster in the form of KBR Park in the centre of the city. Now the technology is going to make this park more green by planting more trees by dropping seed balls through the drones, he added
When asked to give a message, the nature lover film star said the days of giving messages are over. Global warming is here and we are already witnessing its impact. The only way to save us from this is to plant more trees and do whatever you can in your capacity to protect the planet earth, he said.
In the movie Aranya, the film star Rana Daggubati played a role as Aranya, the man who holds the distinction of creating a forest singlehandedly. Aranya has dedicated his life to carry forward his family heritage of protecting the forest and the wildlife. He is the messiah who is determined to deliver the wild animals from the clutches of greedy, inconsiderate and irresponsible human civilization. The film star got so hooked with the initiative of Marut Drones; he lauded the efforts of everybody who got involved in the initiative “Hara Bahara”.
Marut Drones in association with Govt of Telangana’s ITE&C Department and Forest Department has embarked on the Hara Bhara initiative, a brainchild of Marut Drones.
“Hara Bahara” is India’s first Aerial seeding campaign to accelerate the mission of reforestation through planting 1 billion Trees through Drones by 2030 in the country. It is a rapid afforestation campaign driven by data and technology informed MrPrem Kumar Vislawath, Founder & Chief Innovator of Marut Drones, a Hyderabad based drone technology startup.
The campaign was launched in the first week of September by Mr KT Rama Rao, Minister of IT, Govt of Telangana. Within one month of its launch, it has covered 12 Districts in Telangana. These include places like Yadadri, Kamareddy, Medchal, Sircilla, Sangareddy, Shamshabad, Amangal and others. The remaining Districts will be covered before the end of this monsoon, informed MrSurajPeddi and Sai Kumar, the other two founders of Marut Drones.
Starting monsoon, it aims to plant 50 lakh trees in ~12,000 hectares of land in forests across all the 33 districts of Telangana to achieve the vision of Shri K. Chandrashekar Rao, Honourable Chief Minister of Telangana under “Telangana Ku HarithaHaaram” informed Mr MJ Akbar, IFS, Chief Conservator of Forests.
Seedcopter is aiming to seed 1.5 lakh seed balls of native species in each of the 33 Districts of Telangana as suggested by the District Forest Officers. SeedCopter pays Rs 1/- per each seedball made by the self-help groups, the local women and welfare communities.
Seedballs are an ancient method known to us for a very long time. It is an age-old method of propagating plants from seeds without opening up the soil with cultivation tools. Seedballs have become an important aspect of many natural farming and conservation enterprises around the world. The seeds are combined with clay/soil and organic material like compost, worm casting or well-decomposed manure.
Seedcopter part of Marut Drones is India’s leading UAV aerial seeding solution that aims to make reforestation rapid, scalable and sustainable bringing community, science and technology together. Its core objective is to build strong communities for afforestation and bring awareness at a grassroots level on the effects of deforestation, MrPrem added.
Marut Drones approached the Emerging Technologies wing of ITE & C. and asked them to permit to do drone plantations on a pro-bono basis(free of cost) and requested the department to provide the SoP and the location details of the forest areas along with the Geo-Coordinates for the same. Seeing the potential of the drones which can play a significant role in afforestation/reforestation programs by covering the large areas in less time they accorded permission.
The seeds sown by drones will be monitored by Seedcopter’s platform for the next ten years with the help of satellite images and other technologies available. Drone planting plays a major role in planting trees in dense forests and hilly terrain where human beings are unable to reach to plant more treEs. After seeing its success, SeedcopterofMarut Drones will approach other states in India to take up the planting. And that is when it is also planning to involve more partners.
Marut Drones has been doing experiments and studies by spraying seed balls in all sorts of terrains across India such as Udaipur in Rajasthan, Kaziranga National Park in Assam and Uttarakhand for a couple of years and the trails yielded good results.
As of now, Marut Drones is footing the bill to drone seed 50 lakh seed balls. But, next year onwards it will rope in partners to make it a commercially viable initiative.
This project uses drones to disperse seed balls over thin, barren and empty forest lands to turn them into the lush green abode of trees. The process begins with a field survey and mapping of the terrain area to understand the ecosystem and demarcate the areas needing urgent attention. This is used to determine the number and species of trees that can be planted in the barren land based on the soil, climate, and other parameters.
