December 22: Energy conservation or environment protection has always been a question of activists or academicians or in the last few years the governments of the country. Neither the common people nor the people in any other field are doing much in the direction of environmental protection or energy conservation. But Surat-based ecopreneur Viral Desai is one of India's industrialists who has done unprecedented work in the direction of energy conservation and environmental protection. That is why Viral Desai has become the only Ecopreneur of India who has been awarded the highest number of awards at State, National or International level.
Viral Desai, who has been nicknamed the Greenman by the media, has been actively working in the direction of environmental protection since 2015, where he launched the 'Clean India Green India' campaign for tree plantations, under which he has planted more than three lakh ten thousand native species of trees in South Gujarat. On the other hand, he started 'Tree Ganesha' from the year 2018 to connect festivals and environment and to organize environmental awareness drives at a giant level.
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This 'Tree Ganesha' is such a campaign of Viral Desai, which has been acknowledged by the national media and the Gujarat state government, where the Forest Department of Gujarat associated in 2021 and the Forest Department and Gujarat government's pollution control board in 2022 have also officially joined this campaign. In 'Tree Ganesha' the Lord Ganesha is installed in the tree itself, and for ten days a special theme of environment is prepared. From professionals to hundreds of school and colleges, students are engaged in plantation and environmental awareness drives, native species of trees and plants are also distributed to. So far, Viral Desai has distributed more than one lakh trees during Tree Ganesha alone.
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Another very important and unique campaign started by Greenman Viral Desai is the 'Satyagraha Against Pollution and Climate Change' movement. This nationwide campaign is based on the values of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, with the theory of 'Triple A' at its core. This theory of 'Triple A' stands for 'Awareness', 'Attitude' and 'Action'. In this movement, Viral Desai's foundation Hearts at Work and Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Surat have decided to engage two lakh students in an awareness drive and make them 'Paryavaran Senani's' or Environment Warriors. Ten big urban forests will also be prepared under this campaign.
It is also worth mentioning here that Greenman Viral Desai also took the initiative to make the Udhna railway station near Surat a model green railway station in the year 2019. He has prepared more than fifty giant paintings at Green Udhna Railway Station. Environment protection has been the central theme in all the paintings. Apart from this, he has also prepared the country's first Pulwama memorial at Udhna railway station. The memorial is a unique live memorial, where forty large trees have been planted in a single line in honor of the forty Pulwama martyrs.
Apart from this, more than 3500 small and big trees have been planted in the campus of Green Udhna Railway Station.A huge Miyawaki urban forest 'Shahid Smriti Van' also been developed here, this is the 1st urban forest of Indian railways. Due to this unique environmental work, Green Udhna Railway Station has been given the record of the first green railway station in India, Asia, and the World based on the theme of ecosystem restoration and climate action by the India Book of Records in the year 2022.
On one hand environmental protection is the demand of today's time, while a large section of the country is sitting alienated from environmental protection, Greenman Viral Desai is a hope, which our hearts get in this time of climate change, a proof that there are still people like him living on this earth who work selflessly day and night to save it.
