7.5 lakh trees to be planted as part of plantation drive from July 8 to August 15

Greater Noida: District Forest department is seeking help from the district administration for achieving a target of planting 7.5 lakh trees between July 8 to August 15 along Hindon flood plains. Officials said a minimum of one lakh plants would be planted along the 17 km stretch of river Hindon and approximately 30 km stretch of the river Yamuna, both of which pass through Gautam Budh Nagar.

PK Srivastava, divisional forest officer, Gautam Budh Nagar talking with Ten News said. “We have sought help from total of 24 departments of district administration. We have sub-divisional magistrates of Sadar, Dadri and Jewar, based on verbal orders from the district magistrate, for plantation drives along the rivers. There is a large scope of developing a thick green cover along the rivers and the flood plains, for which a large number of volunteers and teams to coordinate will be required.”

“We also want to involve villagers in this plantation drive for which we have motivated them to join us. Villagers are asked for preferences. Once they will tell us the required numbers of trees will be provided to them”

Officials of the forest department said they have stocked about 9.52 lakh plants, including two lakh in reserve, of 45 different species in the department’s six nurseries situated at Dhankur, Surajpur, Devla, Bhisada and in Bilaspur. While about 26,000 saplings will be procured by the department from private nurseries.

Trees peepal, teak or sagaun, rosewood or shisham, arjun, neem, banyan or bargad, drumstick or sahjan, wood apple or bael, eucalyptus, and tamarind or imli for rural clusters and peripheral towns will be prioritised.

Earlier this month, the state government had directed all districts in the state to plant trees, setting a target of 22 crore trees for financial year 2019-20