Green message: Bihar to form 16,351 km human chain

Bihar, which has just 4% of land under forests, is also aiming at an awareness and plantation plan to raise greenery on 33% of its territory.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar with the Dalai Lama in Patna on Friday | Pti
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar with the Dalai Lama in Patna on Friday | Pti

PATNA : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is aiming at a fresh Guinness Book record Saturday when some 4.27 crore of Bihar’s 9 crore people would form a 16,351 km long human chain to promote his pro-environment conservation slogan of ‘Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali’ (water-life-greenery) designed to impede climate change.This would be the third such attempt after the first 11,292-km long human chain  attempted in 2017 with 2 crore people and the 14,000-km long human-chain involving an estimated 4 crore in 2018.

Bihar, which has just 4% of land under forests, is also aiming at an awareness and plantation plan to raise greenery on 33% of its territory. The government has sanctioned `19 crore for the event while approving a budget of `24,500 crore to bolster forest and water resources ‘to preserve all forms of life.’

The centre point of the human chain would be at the sprawling Gandhi Maidan in central Patna, where Kumar will initiate the chain at 11.30am. By noon, the entire chain would be formed all over Bihar in a radii branching out of Patna and reaching Kishanganj district in Bihar’s far east and Bagaha district in the northwest.

A second radii would spread to embrace the entire Gangetic belt from Buxar, near UP, to Bhagalpur on the border with Jharkhand. A third will link Sheohar-Muzaffarpur-Aurangabad axis, north to south with intermediary chains along national and state highways and joining all districts.Official said Muzaffarpur district will form the longest human-chain over 1,320 kms, followed by 732-km in Samastipur, 696-km long in Patna, 648-km each in East and West Champarans, 576-km long in Saran, 564-km in Sitamarhi, besides other districts.

Bihar has engaged 15 choppers, which will take videographers to film the sequence, state education department official Vinodanand Jha, who is coordinating the event, said.The BJP has instructed all its legislators and cadres to join the chain.

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