Noida forest department offers free plants from its nurseries

Noida: The Gautam Budh Nagar forest department said it will give away plants for free from its nurseries from July 4, the day the district will observe a mass plantation drive, to maximise the year’s plantation target

Noida: The Gautam Budh Nagar forest department said it will give away plants for free from its nurseries from July 4, the day the district will observe a mass plantation drive, to maximise the year’s plantation target. Residential organisations and institutes can avail of the free plants till July 31 through the development authority concerned in the district.

HT Image

The Uttar Pradesh government had earlier set the annual plantation target for this year at 300 million throughout the state, to be held. Of this, Gautam Budh Nagar has a target of planting 1,026,955 saplings on Sunday. This year’s drive is to be held on July 4.

“We have decided to give away free plants from our departmental nurseries to the general public so that they can carry out plantation drives in their localities or high-rise societies. For this, they will have to write a proposal to the respective authority, which will forward the proposal to us, after which the saplings will be provided. We are reaching out to the concerned officials of the authority regarding the same,” said Pramod Kumar Srivastava, divisional forest officer, Gautam Budh Nagar.

He added that there are over 12 lakh saplings at government nurseries in the district, of which about eight lakh saplings have been kept on reserve for different departments for the mega plantation drive, which is to be carried out on Sunday. Of these, the forest department plans to plant over 325,836 saplings on Sunday.

Though the plants will be made available from Sunday, they are above and beyond the mass plantation target for the day for GB Nagar, said officials.

“If we keep all reserves, aside there are over 400,000 saplings of 35 different species that we are offering to the residents of the city. These include Arjun, Jamun, Guava, Kanji, Amla, Pomegranate, Neem, etc. We encourage and urge people to come forward and participate,” Srivastava said, adding. “We have enough stock at our six different nurseries to give away. The initiative is being taken to promote plantation throughout the month and increase the green cover of the city.”

Officials from Noida authority, meanwhile, confirmed they have received a communication from the forest department.

“The forest department’s target is to plant over 300,000 plants. A total of 26 different public departments will be carrying out the drive, of which 19 departments have been given a set target,” Srivastava added.

“Though we have received a letter from the forest department, there is some confusion – if the free plants are only for organisations or residential bodies or for the general public as well. We will have this clarified,” said IP Singh, officer on special duty, health, Noida authority.

Last year on July 5, the district saw a massive plantation drive wherein over 936,000 saplings were planted against a target of 850,000 lakh with the help of different staff, paramilitary, and hired help.

The massive plantation drive in UP was started in 2019 – the first one was held on August 15 – wherein eight lakh saplings were planted through at least 26 different public departments in the district. The aim of the drive is to increase the green cover of the state to 15% (36,146 square kilometre) of its geographical area by 2021, from the 12.09% as of 2019 (29,133.5 sqkm).

Of its total geographical area of 1,282 sqkm, Gautam Budh Nagar has 19.99 sqkm (1.56%) of the area under green cover. The city has a total of five moderate dense forests, (density 70-40%), while 15 are open forest (39%-10% density).