Live
- Preparations underway for State Gurukul entrance exam
- DCA inspector arrested by ACB for demanding bribe
- TS LAWCET, PGLCET registration date extended
- Vijayawada: Sandeep Mandava elected president of NAREDCO
- Gold rates in Visakhapatnam stable, check the rates on 16 April 2024
- Akshaya Patra’s Narsingi kitchen gets upgraded
- Visakhapatnam: VUPPC vows to intensify Ukku stir if NDA wins again
- Guv Radhakrishnan inaugurates 98th AIU national vice chancellor conference 2024
- Visakhapatnam: Botcha Satyanarayana demands NDA stand on VSP sale
- Nellore: People ready to end ‘psycho’ rule, says BJP
Cops to plant Jammi Chettu.
Giving a mythical touch to the ongoing Telangana Haritha Haram, Warangal Commissioner of Police G Sudheer Babu has embarked upon a noble task of protecting ‘Telangana State Tree’.
Warangal: Giving a mythical touch to the ongoing Telangana Haritha Haram, Warangal Commissioner of Police G Sudheer Babu has embarked upon a noble task of protecting ‘Telangana State Tree’.
The Commissioner has planned to plant more than 1,000 saplings of ‘Shami Vruksham’ at temples and grounds where ‘Vijayadasami’ festival is celebrated under the limits of the police Commissionerate as part of Haritha Haram.
So far only fruit bearing, flowering and timber yielding plants planted during the programme but not Jammi Chettu. It is for the first time in the State, the plants are planted in Warangal, the Commissionerate sources claimed.
It might be recalled that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has announced the tree as the State Tree in November 2014. The plant is also called as ‘Jammi Chettu’. Shami is its Kannada name while Jammi is the Telugu name.
The Commissioner has on Friday planted a Jammi Chettu sapling at an ancient Sri Siddeshwaralayam in Hanamkonda after performing special prayers amid chanting of Vedic mantras by the temple priest Siddeshuni Suresh Kumar.
‘Shami tree is an integral part of Telangana people and their culture. On Dassera day, people exchange the leaves of the tree with each other and sometimes the leaves are in short supply. That is why it is decided to plant and propagate the tree extensively, Sudheer Babu told The Hans India.
Besides planting the saplings, the personnel of concerned police stations will ensure safe growing of the tree on regular basis. It is also proposed to construct a platform around the tree. The presence of the tree in the temple premises adds sanctity, he explained.
Jammi Chettu saplings are specially procured from nurseries at Kadiyam near Rajahmundry of East Godavari in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The saplings are planted at nearly 50 percent of the temple on Friday, the Commissioner added.
According to mythology, Pandavas chosen the tree for safekeeping of arms during their Agnatavasam (exile) after which they offer prayers to the tree, take back their arms to defeat Kauravas in the war of Mahabharata.
The plant’s scientific name is ‘Prosopis Spicigera’.
Interestingly Shami tree, which spreads a lush green canopy, is also the State Tree of Rajasthan and the National Tree of the United Arab Emirates, where it is called ‘Ghaf’.
According an environmentalist and teacher, V Gurunatha Rao, it is a nitrogen fixer and enriches the soil and is highly drought tolerant.
By:James Edwin
