HYDERABAD: The Telangana government has decided to plant around 20 crore saplings this year as part of the seventh phase of Telangana ku Haritha Haram. A State-level review meeting chaired by A Santhi Kumari, Special Chief Secretary to Government (Forest), was held on Wednesday regarding the implementation of the afforestation scheme.
It was informed that till now the State government has planted 210.85 crore saplings in the previous six phases of the scheme. The government has raised 14,924 nurseries across the State of which 12,753 nurseries have been raised by the Panchayati Raj with the aim of one nursery for every village, 518 by the Forest Department, 1,018 by the Municipal and Urban Development Department, 600 by the GHMC and 35 by the HMDA.
Santhi Kumari directed all departments to take necessary precautions for the protection of saplings during summer through regular watering. She urged that they take up measures for increasing the survival rate of the planted saplings. It was also directed to raise multi-level avenue plantations across all roads in the State.