19.54 crore saplings to be planted during this Haritha Haram season

Hyderabad: The State Government has targeted plantation of 19.54 crore saplings during the current Haritha Haram season. Towards this initiative, Panchayatraj department is assigned with a task of planting 8.76 crore saplings, municipal administration and urban development is instructed to plant 7.32 crore, irrigation department would plant five crore saplings and forest department would plant 1.54 crore saplings.

Accordingly, the departments have been directed to take up extensive plantations in all the open areas across the State. Irrigation department was instructed to take up special measures in planting saplings near irrigation projects and along the canals across the State.

Special Chief Secretary (Forests) A Shanti Kumari held a review meeting with different department officials on the progress of works under the eighth edition of Haritha Haram here on Wednesday.

Learning from the Haritha Haram experiences during the last seven years, the Special Chief Secretary directed the officials to ensure the programme was taken up successfully this year too. There should be mutual cooperation and coordination between the departments, she said.

During the meeting, she discussed the department-wise plantation targets, availability of saplings in the nurseries and planting materials.

“Haritha Haram should not be considered as a routine programme and any kind of complacency will not be tolerated,” Shanti Kumari said. With rains lashing across the State, the Special Chief Secretary directed the officials to expedite the saplings plantation exercise and focus should be on planting big saplings to ensure good survival rate.

Based on the regions and soil conditions, different varieties of saplings should be planted and onus should be on planting native species. As there were different opinions on planting conocorpus plants, they should not be planted during Haritha Haram programme, she said.