Nurturing biodiversity
Our commitment to the planet has shaped the way our company has grown over the past few years. We take our responsibility towards preserving natural resources and saving the environment very seriously, and to this end, have a raft of projects across the spectrum to meet our goals. Nurturing biodiversity is one of our many priority areas apart from focusing on energy and water consumption and conservation. With this in mind, we have set up several gardens and plantations complete with their own water sources and organic compost units at our Pydibhimavaram SEZ site.
Spread across two acres, our medicinal plants garden has 123 varieties of plant species, which are used in Ayurveda, siddha and folk systems of medicine. It is useful to local students of botany and Ayurvedic medicine, as well as to farmers interested in cultivating medicinal plants. They have been planted around a rainwater harvesting pond, which contains around 5,500 kilolitres of water. We’ve also built a dense forested area on 1.25 acres using the Miyawaki method, which is home to around 7,000 plants of various species.
Afforestation is, in fact, one of our key go-to techniques to foster biodiversity. The Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy Prasantha Vanam afforestation programme has led to the cultivation of around 1,000 plants on three acres of land, as well as the building of a small pond, which keeps groundwater supply going for the plants. The Vanam Manam plantation consists of 5,000 plants across 20 acres of land that was levelled for this purpose. It includes a thriving guava grove, which has started yielding fruits.
Another highlight at Pydibhimavaram is a 40-acre pond, which we revived to achieve 100 percent water neutrality for the green sites in our facility. It had been filled with wild grass, weeds and other debris, which was cleared, and roads built around to act as bunds. Culverts have also been dug out to regulate the flow of water to the SEZ site. Now filled with rainwater, it’s a source of irrigable water for our green sites.
Today, lush plants cover significant area in our facility and the earthy smell of diverse plants and fruits mingle in the breeze. They make for a pleasing sight for our people at the site, while reaffirming our commitment towards conserving nature.
