When gifting saplings is a hobby horse!

By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, May 22: The ture is so powerful that a nearly fainted sapling can inspire a citizen to start a go-green campaign of his own, developing to be his hobby thereafter. Cane Craft and Allied Industries owner veen Sood has been gifting people saplings since 2012. Looking at the tree standing erect in front of his shop he recollected the memories related to the plant. “The Forest Department planted a small sapling outside my shop a few years back. Careless parking of a four wheeler nearly killed it. I build a barricade round it and nourished it with manure. Its leaves are now fluttering in the air,” Sood said. “Once I was just touching its leaves leisurely. A certain kind of shiver ran down my spine. It left a lasting impression in me. I have been buying and gifting saplings for free thereafter,” he added. veen buys medicil saplings like neem etc., and non-medicil ones like guava, kordoi, hilikha etc., and distributes them free to people. He has gifted 7,000 saplings to conservationist Jadav Payeng, over 200 to schools, 100 to Bihu committees and over 2,000 to singer Zubeen Garg. He had installed a stall outside his shop and distributed the saplings to the passersby. veen is of the view that the eight states of the Northeast should have a common forest policy.