Haritha Haram: Planting is ok, then monitoring?
No doubt, the initiative India took, which is to plant lakhs of saplings, is quite appreciable. India’s government is encouraging all 29 states to start tree-planting drives to increase the country’s forest cover as part of commitments made at last year’s climate change summit in Paris. The government has designated more than $6.2 billion for tree-planting across the country, in keeping with its pledge to push India’s forest cover to 95 million hectares (235 million acres) by 2030.
Even the Telangana government, naming it as Haritha Haram is taking it as a challenge to plant the saplings across the state. In just Hyderabad, the government has planned to plant 25 lakh saplings today. All the government officials and also private organizations are actively participating in the mega drive.
But the question is, who is going to look forward of the planted saplings in the coming days. Every sapling that is planted needs a regular monitoring, offering water and making sure that, it does not get any diseases and all. If once the work is done, (planting the sapling), who would come back to see the plant’s condition?
As per the estimates, not more than 60 percent of the saplings survive, with the rest succumbing to diseases or the lack of water. So not just planting, the officials should make sure that, all the saplings planted are monitored regularly by the separate team and thus save them from dying. But which government has so much of patience to spend time on monitoring the saplings. Even if the officials plan such proposals, will the team reach up to every plant? If they are not reached, what is the position of the planted saplings, probably helpless?
