VIJAYAWADA: The summer is here, but government’s initiative to increase greenery in urban and rural areas through afforestation and reforestation under the Vanam-Manam programme has failed to meet its annual target.
While Andhra Pradesh ranked first in a tree cover list of India State of Forest Report (ISFR)- 2017, with an increase of 2,141 square kilometers, various stakeholders did not finish their individual targets assigned under the massive plantation drive.
On July 29, 2016, Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu launched the Vanam-Manam programme with the hope of improving the green cover by at least 50 percent from the existing 26. The initiative is a part of Mission Harithandhrapradesh and purely focuses on improving greenery in the state.
Under the project, 23 government departments are given targets for every year. “To increase greenery in their offices and open spaces, the state government gave each department a set target. But with no mechanism, most of the departments have failed to complete the task (for the year),” PJ Banerjee, Krishna district forest officer, said. Some departments had not even achieved 50 percent of the annual task assigned to them, leaving only a few departments, which met their goal.
According to Vanam Manam dashboard, 10 departments met their annual target, eight completed more than 50 percent works and five did below 50 percet of their targets. On analysis, it was found that water resources department planted meagre 75 saplings out of its target of 22,98,645 for the year 2016-2017. Similarly, mines and geology department achieved 6.08 percent.
When contacted, Irrigation Superintendent Engineer (SE) K Ramesh said that lack of adequate space for plantation and mechanism were the reasons they were not able to meet their target. He assured that special drive would be conducted at all the irrigation offices across the state. “For irrigation department, ‘neeru pragathi’ is the top priority. With the help of forest officials, we will organise plantation drives after summer,” he said.
