1 crore saplings to be planted

Visakhapatnam: The district administration is chalking out an ambitious plan to plant one crore saplings this monsoon as a part of ‘Vanamhatsavam’.

All the government departments, public and private sector organisations, business houses and all the educational institutions would be involved in plantation drive in the city.

In a review meeting held with the forest and other departments here on Friday, Collector Dr N Yuvaraj said all the government departments would be allocated certain number of saplings which they have to plant in a time schedule.
The forest department will alone plant over 50 lakh Silver Oak saplings, while irrigation department will plant 9.5 lakh and GVMC, VUDA, social forestry another nine lakh saplings.

Even the farmers would be asked to plant the saplings on the boundaries of their farmlands. The Collector said VUDA was asked to plant in all the layouts which include private layouts approved by them.

In addition to the hospitals, all the schools in the district would be taking up massive plantation. Terming it as bio-fencing, the Collector asked the district educational officer M Venkata Krishna Reddy to see that all the schools planted saplings around the compound wall. The Collector said that aerial seeding would be taken up the way it was done last year.

Around 3,000 tonnes of seeds would be used for aerial and manual seeding in the district. Last year with the cooperation of Eastern Naval Command, 40 tonnes of seeds were cast in the region.

The district administration is impressed with the recovery of the greenery in the city which was destroyed in the 2014 Hudhud cyclone.

The senior officials of all the government departments were present at the meeting.