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Rains play truant; green drive gets longer
Haritha Haaram, the much-talked about mass tree plantation programme of Telangana government will be a two-month affair instead of one-week as planned initially. Prolonged dry spell during the present monsoon has upset the administration plans so much that only 75 lakh sapling, excluding forest areas, were planted until Wednesday. This figure is far lesser than government’s target to plant 40 crore saplings in the first year.
Haritha Haaram to go on until August end or middle of September depending upon monsoon
Hyderabad: Haritha Haaram, the much-talked about mass tree plantation programme of Telangana government will be a two-month affair instead of one-week as planned initially. Prolonged dry spell during the present monsoon has upset the administration plans so much that only 75 lakh sapling, excluding forest areas, were planted until Wednesday. This figure is far lesser than government’s target to plant 40 crore saplings in the first year.
Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao kicked off this programme amid much fanfare on Chilkur Balaji temple premises on July 3.For the next few days he made a whirlwind tour of most of the north Telangana districts to plant saplings at various places. However, deficient rainfall majority of the districts in June and the dry spell that continued even in July first week played spoilsport. This resulted in government changing the original schedule of Haritha Haaram.
The Chief Minister was supposed to tour Warangal and Khammam districts in July second week, but he cancelled his visit owing to extended dry spell. He is understood to have given directions to concerned authorities to put off the drive until monsoon sets in fully.
He is reportedly very concerned about ‘after care’ process of plantations done thus far since they are at the risk of getting dried up due to lack of water. District administrations were given instructions to water the plantations regularly and accordingly, fire engines and tankers were pressed into service. Further, officials were told to monitor weather forecasts before taking up the programme.
As per revised schedule, the first phase of Haritha Haaram will go on until end of August or middle of September, depending upon the monsoon. A message was conveyed from district to village levels to go for mass plantations as and when rain started pouring in their areas. Now it will not be done at the State-level but it will be taken up in district levels over the next two months.
With rain god showing some mercy in July second week, tree plantation drive picked up in districts like Adilabad. As per the latest data in Haritha Haaram website, Adilabad is on top of the list with close to 26 lakh plantations so far followed by Nalgonda and Medak with 13 lakh and 9.5 lakh respectively. Ranga Reddy and Mahabubnagar districts are at the bottom with just one lakh plantations, evidently due to less rainfall.
By:Mahesh Avadhutha
