BENGALURU: Hasiru Karnataka, the green campaign project of the Kumaraswamy government, will take off on August 15. The motto of the programme is — A tree to each house, a grove to each village, a small forest to each taluk, a forest to each district.
The Rs 10-crore project hopes to give an additional impetus to the development of social forestry in the state and thereby, make a better environment for future generations. This scheme enables people to grow trees suitable to their area in government lands on small hills, gomalas, and areas surrounding lakes and tanks.
According to Punati Sridhar, state PCCF and Head of Forest Force, Hasiru Karnataka will take off as a movement from August 15-18.
“In fact, it will go on till the end of this month. It is a mass movement involving every government department and the DCs in every district will spearhead the movement. We have enough seedlings — almost 1.5 crore seedlings for distribution across the state and area-specific species will be planted. It will be like vanamahotsava programme in all available government space — C&D lands, government buildings, among others.”
Although the state budget provides `10 crore to facilitate the project of sowing seeds with soil balls and plant saplings on a large scale by both the government and NGOs, funds are yet to be released. However, the PCCF says, “Last year, we had raised six crore seedlings and so there is no dearth for the plantation programme.”