Telangana to plant 40 crore saplings this year

The Telangana Government is committed to planting 40 crore saplings this year, Forest Minister Jogu Ramanna has stated. Participating in ‘Harita haram’ – the flagship program of expanding greenery to 36 per cent from the existing 23 per cent forest cover in Telangana, the minister said at Ravindra Bharati on Friday that they were encouraging plantation program at different levels on a massive scale. The Government had already taken up the plantation drive. He called upon the people to get involved in it for its success. Ramanna maintained that the spread of greenery had many advantages, such as fighting pollution, attracting rains and getting better environment. The TRS Government under the leadership of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had a vision to spread greenery. The government plans to plant a total of 230 crore saplings in the next three years. The drive is going on in a speedy manner to distribute 40,000 saplings to every village and 40 lakhs of saplings to each Assembly constituency. It was also decided by the government to encourage farmers to plant 100 saplings each at least and get Rs 5 per plant towards maintenance.