“You helped us build this Vriksha Mandir — this Gramvan — and more than 5,300 trees are now flourishing here. We have over 45 different species growing on this land. Our school children come here on trips. They come and learn to identify the trees.”
That’s how Jagdishkaka, from Chotasan village in Sabarkantha district, described the Gramvan (village forest) that now stands where degraded grazing land once was. Hearing this from him was genuinely heartening for our team — the whole point of this effort was to help the next generation grow up recognising and valuing trees, and that purpose is clearly being fulfilled.
Chotasan’s young sarpanch, Chetanbhai, has been personally committed to nurturing these trees. In 2024, he invited us to raise a Gramvan on the village’s own land — land that had been overrun with gaando baval (invasive prosopis scrub) and left as unused grazing ground. With support from Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation, VSSM took on the work of clearing that land and planting trees across it.
The village handled the site clearing and arranged for water supply; on our side, trees were planted and a designated “vriksha mitra” (tree-friend) took charge of their upkeep. Beyond that, the village took on full responsibility itself. As VSSM field workers Tohidbhai and Maheshbhai put it: “If we get more sites like this, imagine how much we could achieve. We don’t even need to visit regularly — the village takes care of it on its own.”
There’s an ambition to replicate this in Sabarkantha the way it’s been done in Banaskantha, and the intent is strong — if more villages come forward as genuine partners, this kind of meaningful work can take root in many more places.
Beyond the trees themselves, the Gramvan has quietly become something else too: a home for thousands of birds and voiceless creatures who now have somewhere to live. We remain grateful to VSSM’s founder, Mittal Patel, whose commitment has made Gramvans like this one possible — with more to come.
As one caption from the site puts it simply: the height of these trees has grown to twice the height of the people who planted them.
