ESDS Software Solution Limited, one of India’s leading cloud and data center company, has completed its largest single-year plantation drive to date with 20,000 trees planted on forest land at Warwandi, near Nashik, with the permission of the Maharashtra Forest Department. But the headline number is not the plantation. It is the commitment that follows: ESDS has deployed a dedicated, full-time on-ground team that will guard and maintain the site, through every season, for the next five years. The company's confidence in that model is grounded in results. Of the 15,000 saplings ESDS planted at Warwandi in 2025, its on-ground team brought 14,000 through a full year — including the harshest summer months — a survival rate of over 93%, at a time when typical large-scale plantation drives in India lose close to half their saplings within the first year. This year's 20,000 trees extend that same stretch of land, taking the Warwandi forest to 35,000 trees under active, round-the-clock protection. The Ramshej Lesson: Protect the Land, and Nature Plants the Forest The five-year protection commitment is not a new idea for ESDS. It is the deliberate application of a lesson the company learned over fifteen years at Ramshej — a barren, overgrazed 50-acre tract near Nashik that ESDS adopted in 2011. Over the following decade, ESDS and its employees planted roughly 35,000 trees there. Today, the same land holds nearly 100,000 trees and all competing against each other for more space. The difference — more than a quarter of a million trees — was planted not by people, but by nature itself at Ramshej and Tungaldara. ESDS's decisive contribution was protection: fencing and guarding the land from the cattle and grazing animals that had kept the Ramshej land barren for decades. Once the grazing pressure stopped, birds carried in seeds, saplings took root undisturbed, and the forest began planting itself — multiplying the company's own effort many times over. What was once bare ground is today a dense, self-sustaining jungle in which wild animals have made their home. Speaking on the initiative, Mr. Piyush Somani, Promoter, Chairman and Managing Director of ESDS Software Solution Ltd., said, “Ramshej taught us something we have never forgotten. Of the one lakh trees standing there today, we planted barely thirty-five thousand. The rest were planted by the birds, by the wind, by nature herself — the moment we stopped the grazing and simply protected the land. Anyone can plant a tree for a day, take a photograph, and move on. A forest is created by the people who keep showing up when there is no camera and no crowd. That is why, this year, we have not just planted twenty thousand trees — we have stationed people on that land, day and night, for the next five years. Protect the land, and nature will do the rest.” As part of this commitment, ESDS has deployed a dedicated, full-time on-ground security and maintenance team tasked solely with protecting the Warwandi plantation twenty-four hours a day, throughout the year, for five years — a first among the company's regreening initiatives, and a direct institutionalisation of the approach that created the Ramshej forest. Commenting on the initiative, Mrs. Komal Somani, Whole-time Director, CMO and CHRO of ESDS Software Solution Ltd., said, “Every plantation we have undertaken has been more than an environmental exercise — it has been a way of involving our people in something larger than themselves. Our teams have watered saplings through summers, guarded them through nights, and watched barren land turn into living forest. Committing to protect these twenty thousand trees for the next five years reflects the kind of long-term thinking we want ESDS, and the communities we work in, to be known for.” Fifteen Years of Regreening Nashik 2011 — Ramshej: ESDS adopts 50 acres of barren, overgrazed land. ~35,000 trees planted over a decade; protection from grazing allows nature to expand it to nearly 100,000 trees — today a self-sustaining wild forest. 2024 — Sandip University: Over 750 volunteers — ESDS employees, NCC cadets, NGOs and Nashik residents — plant 5,000+ trees under the “regreenNashik” banner. 2025 — Warwandi: 15,000 saplings planted in a single day with the Maharashtra Forest Department; 14,000 protected through the year — a 93% survival rate. 2026 — Warwandi: 20,000 trees planted, with a five-year, 24x7 on-ground protection commitment. Total trees standing across ESDS initiatives: over 1.4 lakh. ESDS's regreening initiatives are part of the company's broader, ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability across the communities in which it operates. The company intends to continue investing in plantation and land-protection efforts in the years ahead — extending a journey that began with a single barren stretch of land at Ramshej and has grown into one of the region's most sustained corporate regreening commitments. About ESDS Software Solution Limited ESDS Software Solution Limited is one of the leading Indian cloud service and data center provider, offering cloud, data centre, GPU infrastructure and enterprise security solutions. The company operates Tier III data centres across India and serves clients across BFSI, government, healthcare, manufacturing and technology sectors. For more information, visit www.esds.co.in