‘Massive tree programme will work if people take part’

As the forest department is two days away from implementing its two crore trees plantation programme across the state, citizens and non-governmental organisations and various departments have registered on a site that they will plant 3,11,66,057 saplings across the state. At the same time, about 3,05,50,604 pits have been dug across the state, which have been geo-tagged on specially created software to ascertain their location. However, the forest ministry has accepted that the massive programme would only be a success with the help of resident participation due to lack of manpower and no additional fund allocation for the project.

On Wednesday, Sudhir Mungantiwar, minister for forest, revenue and planning, confirmed that there had been a massive response from different parts of the state. “We intend to cover 33 per cent of the state’s area with trees. This is an attempt to involve residents into the plantation programme as, with their support, we can increase the green cover to non-forest lands. We are looking forward to plant 50 crore trees till 2019 with 3 crore, 10 crore and 25 crore plantations in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively,” said Mr Mungantiwar.

Officials confirmed that across 6,5674 sites across the state, 5,32,37000 saplings were being made available through various branches of the forest department. As government organisations will avail of the saplings for free, individuals can avail 50 per cent discount on the plants.

Apart from July 1 mission plantation, the minister mentioned various programmes under which within three months, the forest department will develop a nursery with about 50 crore trees. The FD has also approached the roads, railways and defence sectors, requesting land to achieve the target of planting 400 crore trees across the state. “The Union railway minister has approved to offer 5,000 Railways sites for plantation and at the same time 300 km of roads are available for plantation from the road transport and highways department,” added Mr Mungantiwar.

A number of other projects like Green Army of 10 million individuals for tree conservation and tree credit system is in the pipeline to increase the green cover across the state. Another Smritivan Project has been proposed where an individual, in any 378 districts will deposit a certain amount by planting a tree, after which the administrative officers of the tehsil will be designated to take care of the tree for the next seven years, failing which they will have to refund the investor.