BHUBANESWAR: The Forest, Environment and Climate Change department will plant 19 lakh palm trees to check lightning strikes and resultant fatalties in the state.A decision in this regard was taken during a meeting of divisional forest officers (DFOs). “Since palm tree has been found to be a good natural lightning arrester, the government has decided to plant it in a large scale,” said PCCF and HoFF Debidutta Biswal.
He said the plantation exercise, as decided by the department, will be taken from the beginning of next monsoon in 2024. The trees will be planted in all forest blocks of the state for which Rs 7.6 crore will be provided by the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA).
Sources said the drive will be carried out at 4,479 notified forest blocks spread over 39,671 sq km of boundary lines across all territorial and wildlife divisions. The total number of boundary pillars in the forest blocks comes to around 4.80 lakh and four palm trees will be planted near each pillar.
Apart from curbing lightning deaths, forest officials said the drive will also help in generating fodder for wild animals, especially elephants in the forests.Forest officials said the Agriculture department will also carry out plantation of palm trees in vulnerable villages.