Sherna Gandhy

The Tata Motors facility near Pune is dotted with woods and lakes, but this is no gift of nature. Rather, it has taken years of determined effort and dedication to transform what was 800 acres of wasteland into a naturalist's delight

The expanse of water ripples gently in the breeze. Ducks waddle peacefully in the placid waters, while painted storks wade across the shallows with measured steps. Cormorants perch languorously, wings outspread, on the trees in the thick forests that surround the lake and stretch across nearly 800 acres. Mud paths meander between the trees, beckoning invitingly. The air is cool, and you might be forgiven for thinking you are in some unspoilt holiday resort. You are, in fact, in the middle of one of the most heavily industrialised townships in the country; in Pimpri, on the outskirts of Pune. The location is the sprawling campus of the Tata Motors plant. If that's not enough of a surprise, here's another: all this 'bounty of nature' is actually man-made.

Tata Motors' corporate accomplishments may be many, but its environmental and conservation achievements are truly astounding. When it was acquired in 1964 for setting up India's first truck manufacturing plant, Telco, the 800 acres of now-verdant greens was a rocky wasteland, arid, barren and devoid of a single blade of grass. However, J. R. D. Tata, the visionary chairman of the Tata Group, and Sumant Moolgaonkar, whose name is synonymous with Telco, wanted the barren area to be greened even before production started.

When the chief forest officer of the district was called in for advice, he declared that nothing could grow here. Time and commitment have proved him wrong. Today there are over 150,000 trees on the company's campus. Since it was an article of faith that the resources of the area should not in any way be strained to meet the needs of the plant, a 200-metre dam was built across three streams that flowed through the estate. This created a lake, which was later stocked with a variety of fish. The birds and butterflies followed, and many a naturalist has spent a pleasant few hours in these sylvan surroundings where, just a few hundred metres away, over 100,000 motor vehicles are manufactured each year.

"The Telco complex in Pune is an industry in a mini-jungle," said the late B. D. Sharma, once the company's chief horticultural officer and the man who created the green miracle. A recent biodiversity survey recorded the existence of 78 species of exotic trees and 110 species of indigenous trees. One of the first things Mr Sharma did when the land was bought in 1964 was to establish a nursery on 6 acres of land in the residential area. In the first year 2,000 trees were planted, and the total number increased to 70,000 by 1971. The latest tree census puts the figure at more than 150,000.

Mr Sharma came up with many horticultural innovations during his long stint in the post. To ensure that trees grew quickly, he pioneered the 'pole planting method', in which trunks or large branches of trees, eight to 10 feet tall, were planted in specially dug pits at regular intervals. In a year or two they attained a height of 25 feet. More than 5,000 peepul trees were propagated by the 'air-layering' method because peepul saplings were not available in such large numbers in any nursery.

Species like pangara, bhendi, glyricidia, silk cotton, Tabubia Pallinda, Peltiphorum, jacaranda and gulmohor are just a few of the several varieties of trees that delight the eye and offer shade. A hybrid tea rose called the 'Tata Centenary' was planted in the Telco nursery, as also the diesel tree, an exotic species from South America which is rarely found in India (this is the particular pride and joy of S. S. Deshmukh, manager-horticulture at Tata Motors).

Surrounding areas have benefited from this initiative. Between 2001 and 2004, 1,793 saplings have been provided to social institutions and schools in surrounding villages as part of Tata Motors' rural development programme. A fruit tree bank, said to be the first in the country, supplies mature fruit trees grown in drums, so that farmers can benefit quickly from the yield. Almost 2,000 such fruit trees have been supplied in the past three years. Employees are encouraged to take saplings and plant them around their quarters. Trees have also been planted on village wasteland, and some 205 acres have been greened.

Why should it be of such great importance that the premises of an engineering company look like a forest? In The Creation of Wealth, R. M. Lala's chronicle of the Tatas, JRD says: "We did not have to create a lake to produce a truck. But we did." Literally so. Since there was little groundwater and the area has scanty rainfall, not one but two lakes were created to meet the water requirements of the plant.

The Sumant Sarovar was the first. A 200-metre dam was built across three seasonal streams, using debris from the factory buildings that were then coming up. It is situated in the 400-acre residential area that is separated from the main factory area by a highway. A second lake, the Sharma Lake, was created to take the overflow. The lakes are fed by rainwater and also by recycled water from the plant. The effluent treatment plant deals with 4.7 million gallons of wastewater from the complex every day, which then flows back into the lakes. Regular tests for water purity shows it to be well above the norms stipulated by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. Water is harvested from the roofs of the factory buildings and there is strict monitoring of its use in the manufacturing and other areas of the complex. This has cut water consumption and minimised wastage.

The lakes and forests are not just functional. Legendary ornithologist Salim Ali once spotted 35 species of birds in a few hours spent here. There are an estimated 140 species of birds and, in the 1970s, several different kinds of edible fish were introduced into the lakes. These included catla, rohu, mahseer, common carp and silver carp, the latter two natives of China. The fish are harvested under company supervision and supplied to a nearby hospital. They help keep the water clean by feeding on the algae and water fleas that accumulate on the lakebed.

The water management and conservation techniques practised at the plant have been extended to the surrounding villages too. Five hundred acres of land were brought under irrigation when a weir was built over the River Bhama at Pimpri-Budruk by Tata Motors and the state government. The company's hydraulic excavators have helped de-silt old ponds and excavate new ones. Several types of bunds have been built and, wherever villagers show a willingness to learn, meetings are organised to disseminate information about water management techniques. As with all its community work, Tata Motors supplies the expertise and initial inputs, but it is the people themselves who must carry the project forward.

Like conservation of water, conservation of energy and other resources in the plant have to meet strict in-house standards. Oil used in the manufacturing process is recycled and targets are set to conserve its use. This has resulted in a lower consumption of virgin oil and more use of recycled oil. Ultra-violet lamps are immersed in coolant plants, so that less coolant is used. Oil skimmers skim off the oil, so that less of it falls into the coolant. This also prevents degradation of the coolant and conserves it. Hazardous waste is tracked, noise levels monitored and the air quality checked. Solar and wind power — the latter coming from wind farms set up near Satara — account for one-third of the energy used. There is voluminous documentation available of how all these conservation measures are tracked in each department.

It is commonly believed that good environmental and conservation practices cost too much to be viable. M. B. Kulkarni, an assistant general manager with Tata Motors, says this is true only in the short term. He is in no doubt that it pays in the long run, because it "helps improve quality". Anyway, he adds, "It is a cost we do not count. The Tatas believe in it."

Uploaded in March 2005