Tree plantation drive launched to fight pollution
NEWDELHI: The national capital set a record of sorts on Saturday when government agencies planted 500,000 saplings in a single day across 643 locations in the city.
In plantation drives held during the monsoon in the past years, the Delhi government never planted more than 50,000 saplings in a day.
Amid citizens protest and litigation over a proposal to cut at least 14,000 trees for redevelopment of seven neighbourhoods in South Delhi, the authorities on Saturday announced new green- ing initiatives such as ‘adopt a tree’ scheme for residents living in Lutyens’ Delhi and ‘geotagging” of all 500,000 sap- lings that were planted across the city.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal called the efforts a “mass movement launched by the people of Delhi” to combat air pollution.
“Delhi is battling severe air pollution and we can feel the dust around us. All of us are responsible for this situation and now the onus is on all of us to resolve this,” he said after planting a banyan sapling at the Garhi Mandu plantation site in east Delhi.
JA Chouhan, principal chief conservator of forest of Delhi, said workers had been planting saplings at Garhi Mandu site since 2:30 am in order to hit the target.
But the plantation drive came with its own set of problems.