Where your tree donation really goes — a complete breakdown
Vanamitra Team · Apr 22, 2026 · 7 min read
Of every ₹500, ₹312 reaches the soil. Here is the receipt — sapling, labour, three years of care, and the photo we take when it is taller than you.
When you pay ₹500, the first thing that moves is a purchase order to our nursery partner in Nadiad. A certified sapling — grown from seeds native to the Sabarmati basin — costs us between ₹80 and ₹120, depending on species and age. Neem tends to be cheaper; Peepal and Arjun are slightly more because they require longer nursery time. The sapling arrives on a Tuesday or Saturday morning, tagged with a temporary number.
Labour is the second largest cost. Our team of thirteen plants in pairs. Each pair plants between 18 and 24 trees in a session, clearing the pit, mixing compost, setting the tree guard, and recording the GPS coordinates. This work costs us ₹9 per sapling in direct wages plus a small materials overhead. We do not use daily contract labour for planting; our permanent team does it, which is why our survival rates hold.
The remaining ₹312 — the largest share — goes toward what happens after: three years of mulching (twice per monsoon), drip-irrigation infrastructure, monthly photography, the QR-tagged marker, and the digital platform that hosts your tree page and certificate. A tree does not survive by being planted; it survives because someone comes back. That cost is real, and it is baked into every ₹500.
Written from Vasna village, Kheda district, Gujarat. We plant on Tuesdays and Saturdays.