As a part of the Independence Day celebration, Torana Inc., an IT product company in Nagpur, planted 3000 young plants as well as 500 seeds on the Forest Department land near Chimnazari (Umred, Nagpur).
Sandesh Gawande, CTO of Torana Inc., has a keen interest in environmental sustainability & welfare of farmers. He & Smita Gawande (CEO, Torana Inc.) founded the Sandesh and Smita Gawande Foundation to take efforts in this direction. The co-founders aim to contribute to the local ecosystem by growing forests, especially with wild or local fruit trees. This will, in turn, direct wild herbivores to these ‘forests’ instead of farmlands, thus reducing man-animal conflict in surrounding villages.
Since the idea is to plant fruit & flowering trees, those trees are expected to thrive because they will not be cut by locals for timber & commercial gains. Sandesh and Smita Gawande Foundation has previously also organized awareness sessions for farmers regarding government schemes in Agriculture. The foundation is open for CSR collaboration with other companies as well.
Torana Inc., Sandesh and Smita Gawande Foundation and the Forest Department (of Maharashtra State Government) had signed a Tripartite Agreement for the plantation. As per this agreement, the onus of protecting these young plants from cattle grazing is also on Sandesh and Smita Gawande Foundation. Following this clause, Sandesh and Smita Gawande Foundation has done barbed wire fencing around the designated land as well as planted Bonducella seeds along the boundary (Bonducella is a thorny hedge plant which cattle avoid).
The whole team of Torana Inc. participated in this plantation activity. Young plants of Banyan, Neem, Pimpal, Umber, Sitaphal, Amla, Jamun, Behda, Moha, Shivan were planted. Apart from these plants, seeds of Mango, Sitaphal, Jamun collected by Torana employees were also sown. Plants were deliberately planted in a random fashion as the aim is to mimic forests & not a commercial plantation. With the rainy season already in tow, this is an ideal time for young plants and seeds to grow & get firmly rooted to the ground.
Sandesh Gawande & project lead Ravindra Avathare also gave a tour of the forest land to Torana employees; they explained the philosophy & vision behind this activity. Ravindra Avathare specially mentioned & thanked Shri. Prabhunath Shukl, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Nagpur for his encouragement & support in this endeavor. The employees of Torana Inc. were more than willing to volunteer for this project & participated enthusiastically.
Torana Inc. was founded by Sandesh Gawande in 2005. It is an established software product company whose product iCEDQ (Integrity Check Engine for Data Quality) is used by organizations like New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), IBM, Nomura, E*Trade, Franklin Templeton Investments, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Taco Bell, etc. in the USA. Torana is constantly innovating; it has two other software products in development. Torana Inc. headquarters are in Stamford, USA & the research-development center is at IT Park, Nagpur.
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