Coimbatore , Nov. 17, 2018: A bus conductor from Coimbatore is setting a great example by planting trees.
M Yoganathan can now proudly say many living creatures have found life because of him.
Apart from his busy conductor work, he spares time to plant trees. He has planted 300,000 trees across 32 of Tamil Nadu’s districts in the last 30 years.
the 49-year-old bus conductor says he knows how worse the environment turned after the effects of constant pollution affecting various forms of life in the modern world.
Yoganathan realized that the only way to make a change is to plant as many as trees as possible.
Yoganathan began campaigning against deforestation in the Nilgiris. “On my weekly off — Monday — I go to plant trees in schools, colleges and universities,” Yoganathan told The News Minute.
He has visited more than 3,000 schools across the state in a bid to organize plantation drives and create awareness. He ensures that every sapling planted by a school student is named after him/her and receives sufficient nurturing.
“When I ask a child to plant a sapling, I name the plant after the child. Suppose Ramu plants a pungai (Indian beech) sapling, I would name it Ramu pungai and ask the boy to treat the sapling as his sibling and give it water daily,” he told The Weekend Leader.
Owing to his repeated absence from work, the bus conductor Yoganathan has been transferred around 40 times in his 17 years of service. However, he says he has never taken leave for personal reasons. Knowing about his work towards nature, his chiefs have become more lenient towards him.
He has received numerous awards over the past several years. Yoganathan has won Eco Warrior Award, a state Environment Department Award, a CNN-IBN Real Heroes Award, and a Periyar Award.
(theyouth)