NGO’s drive to enhance greenery

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 22

In an effort to increase the green cover in the city, people from all walks of life have come together to plant more trees. Residents, especially youth, are also contributing to this noble initiative by setting a new trend of gifting plants to each other.

On a regular basis, it can also be spotted that commuters are stopped on roads and are handed over with the saplings by the volunteers.

On Thursday, Rajdeep Singh, a resident of Industrial area, distributed more than 500 plants. Rajdeep, who is also running an NGO “Country First” said, “We want to plant maximum trees before the onset of monsoon, therefore on every joyous occasion we don’t forget to gift plants to our friends.”

Notably, he is collecting saplings from the Forest Department and distributing them to the passersby with the help of his friends. “People have also responded positively towards our initiative and were posting pictures on social media while planting them imparting a message of planting trees”, said Singh.

Abhilakshya Khanna (21), who is a self defence teacher, also gifted 107 plants to the parents of his students. “i-Haryali” app is also contributing to the initiative of increasing green cover. Though the app, which was launched under “Tandarust Punjab Mission” to ensure clean, green, healthy and robust Punjab with the active participation of the masses, isn’t much popular among the locals but some youth are also utilising the benefits of the app in collecting saplings.

Meanwhile the quality of the saplings was also in question as Rajdeep said, the saplings provided by Forest Department were not of good quality. Whereas Puneet Kumar, the Forest guard in Jalandhar range said, the i-Haryali app was giving good results as approximately 5,000 samplings had been received by the residents as well the NGO’s, since the app was launched.