Amritsar: 2.5 crore saplings to be planted across Punjab this monsoon

Amritsar, June 22

The state government has set a target of planting 2.5 crore saplings throughout the state for the Forest Department and has asked it to set up nurseries. Officials of the department have been told to carry out plantation on vacant land belonging to different departments.

In this regard, a meeting with the heads of all departments of the district was conducted by Finance Commissioner, Forest Department, Krishna Kumar here on Saturday. He said the area under forests in the state Punjab has reduced to 5.92 per cent over the years and to improve the environment, the state’s area under trees and forests will be increased to 7.5 per cent by 2030. “A new initiative has been started by the government to increase the percentage. Apart from forest land, saplings will be planted on a large scale in non-forest land and panchayat areas will play a major role in this work,” he said.

Krishna Kumar said the panchayats think that with the saplings planted on the panchayat land, their land will come under the Forest Department and they will be stopped from cutting trees due to which they refrain from planting saplings on the panchayat land.

He clarified that the Forest Department will not attempt to afforest the panchayat land and the plantation area under any forest law nor will there be any restriction by the Forest Department while cutting the planted trees. He also made it clear that in future, panchayats will be fully entitled to income from trees cut from the area by the panchayats.

Krishna Kumar while addressing a meeting said a target of 10 lakh saplings has been set for planting in different places to make the district green. He directed the officials to plant maximum saplings in the district and in this regard, support from the BSF should also be taken. He said all the departments should mark their vacant places for planting saplings and get saplings from the Forest Department as per their requirement.

Orders were given to identify every vacant place related to their departments, i.e. government buildings, hospitals, schools and panchayat land on which plantation can be done so that plants can be provided to them as per their requirement.