World record: 7,395 saplings of 16,731 distributed by SPPU students planted

Volunteers planted the saplings along the route taken by the yearly wari. The warkari who walk the wari, accompany the palkhis of Sant Tukaram and Sant Dynaneshwar to Pandharpur

As of July 5, 7,395 saplings have been planted by student volunteers of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) along the route taken by the yearly wari (pilgrimage).

A drone image of the 50X50 grid system, with positions for each participant marked. Besides drone cameras, 36 other cameras covered every entry corridor.(HT PHOTO)

The warkari who walk the wari, accompany the palkhis of Sant Tukaram and Sant Dynaneshwar to Pandharpur.

A total of 5,000 saplings will be planted over the week in Indapur by Indapur college.

On June 23, SPPU attempted to set a Guinness world record for distributing the largest number of saplings of a single species of plant. A total of 16,731 saplings of Neem were distributed to National Social Service (NSS) volunteers in the SPPU campus, in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and vice-chancellor Nitin Karmalkar. It was a part of socially relevant project ‘Nirmal (Clean), Harit (Green) and Swastha (Healthy) wari’, as part of the annual pilgrimage to Pandharpur, famously known as ‘Ashadhi Wari’.

Earlier, a school in Dubai held the record of distributing 9,371 saplings at a time at a single venue.

In order to attempt the record, as per guidelines by Guinness world records one auditing firm, two government officials (Rajendra Dahale, IPS officer and deputy inspector general of police (wireless) and Laxminarayan Mishra, IAS officer, commissioner) 75 advocates as witness, 350 professors as stewards for the event and students to arrive as early as 6.30 am at the university grounds, was required for the event to take place.

“As per the guidelines of the Guinness it was instructed that we should build a venue of the attempt with a confined boundary to make it a restricted area along with the entry and the exit gates. Accordingly the place was closed with five feet high structure of iron railings and white cloth. Fifteen entry gates along with long iron corridors were made for smooth entry of the participants into the ground. On the ground, keeping ‘50 x 50’ grid systems in mind, positions for each and every participant were marked. Beside drone cameras, 36 different cameras were fixed in different places, including four wide angle cameras to cover all the entry corridors,” said SPPU Senate member Bageshri Manthalkar.

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