You will see lot of avenue plantations in Hyderabad soon: OSD Priyanka Varghese
HYDERABAD: Sapling plantation as part of Telangana Ku Haritha Haram (TKHH) has not garnered enough steam in Hyderabad since the inception of the scheme three years ago, as the urban development authorities GHMC and HMDA have failed till now to achieve even 20 per cent of the government-set target of planting 10 crore saplings till 2019. Since the launch of TKHH in 2015, while GHMC has planted just 6.72 lakh saplings, the HMDA has managed to plant only 1.06 crore saplings.
Accepting that there has been a shortfall on part of GHMC and HMDA in planting saplings as part of the Haritha Haaram, TKHH, OSD, Priyanka Varghese said, “City area I must agree, effort in the last two years has not been as much as it was required. They have been saying there is no space. They have been told to find any space available and plant saplings.”
“We are trying to bridge the gap this year and 800 open spaces have been identified where planting is to be taken up. You will soon see a lot of avenue plantations in GHMC,” she added. This year GHMC and HMDA have been given targets of planting 40 lakh and 170 lakh saplings respectively. When asked as to when will the public get to know effect of saplings planted as part of TKHH on the forest cover in State, Varghese said that as the forest cover is calculated using satellite images, it will take time for the impact of TKHH scheme to become visible. She said that most probably, the impact will be noticeable in the next Indian state of Forest report which will be released in 2020.
After conducting a selfie with sapling contest last year, the forest department will this year propagate another challenge on social media to further its campaign. The forest department will be partnering with a city-based NGO, Igniting Minds, and will start ‘Hara hai toh bhara hai’ social media challenge. As part of the campaign a person will plant three saplings and challenge three others in planting three more saplings each, by tagging them on social media, she said.
TKHH scheme initiated in 2015
The TKHH scheme was initiated in 2015 with an aim of planting 230 crore saplings by 2019, which includes planting of 130 crore outside forest areas, 100 crore plants inside the forest areas by way of intensive protection of the forests and 10 crore inside the GHMC and HMDA limits