Telangana News

The enthusiasm, officials showed in planting the saplings as a part of Harithaharam programme, is not being witnessed in maintaining them, the reports say. 

Proving the same, over half of the thousands of planted saplings, have died, the University of Hyderabad officials say.

"Nearly 60% of the saplings planted on campus have died now. The reason is a clear lack of maintenance. When the plantation drive was carried out in July 2016, authorities had promised that these saplings would be properly taken care of. Why were so many trees and shrubs, which provided shelter to animals, razed to the ground only to plant saplings which have now died due to the state government's negligence?" asked Ravi Jillapalli, founder of Wild Lens group that hopes to protect wildlife on campus.

Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (CREDAI), under whose Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, the project was carried out, should take the responsibility, the university officials said.

"Recently, a special officer from the chief minister's office visited the campus to take stock of the situation. Authorities have now instructed CREDAI members to take care of the existing saplings and replace the ones that have died with new saplings of the same species," Vipin Srivastava, the official spokesperson of UoH said.