HYDERABAD: Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday stressed the need for a Haritha Haram, a special drive to protect forests and improve green cover in the state, during a video-conference with district collectors.
The chief minister wanted the collectors to give importance to raising trees. “In the next three years, I want 230 crore saplings to be planted in the entire state. Of them 120 crore trees should be raised in urban and rural areas while 100 crore saplings should be planted in forest areas. About 10 crore plants should be raised in HMDA jurisdiction,’’ he said.
The chief minister wanted the collectors to take personal interest to ensure protection of the trees planted. He wanted them to hold reviews with DFOs and social forest DGOs. He expressed unhappiness over depletion of green cover in forests in Warangal, Khammam, Adilabad, Medak and Karimnagar districts. He wanted the collectors to protect forest land and if necessary they should get details from DFOs about the land in the district and plan methods to protect them. “We should plan now itself to ensure that no encroachment of forest land takes place in future,” he said, pointing out that they should visit forests now and then to find out how the situation is at the ground level.
The chief minister said that he wanted to spend upto `500 crore on Haritha Haram. For every two to three villages, there will be a nursery from where plants would be supplied. In every village, about 30,000 to 40,000 trees should be raised, he said.