State to plant 50 crore trees in the next 3 years

MUMBAI: Forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar announced his plan to plant 50 crore trees in next three years on Wednesday.

MUMBAI: Forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar announced his plan to plant 50 crore trees in next three years on Wednesday.

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“We have chalked out a foolproof plan to plant 3 crore, 10 crore and 25 crore trees in next three years respectively. 12.27 crore trees will be planted by the gram panchayats, taking the number to more than 50 crore,” he said.

The minister said the government’s ultimate aim is to take the forest cover to 33%, from the existing 20%, which will need about 400 crore trees to be planted. “We have chalked out a special plan for the drought-hit Marathwada with the help of Eco Battalions of the Indian Army,” he said.

With almost all districts set to participate in the tree plantation drive, Mumbai is lagging behind the rest of the state. The city plans to plant only 23,650 trees, while other districts — including Thane — have dug lakhs of plantation pits.

Against the state government’s target of planting 2 crore trees on July 1, the district administration, forest department and social forestation department have dug 3.11 crore pits for the plantation.

Around 65,674 sites have been registered by the government, NGOs and private organisations. Mumbai, at 146 sites, lags behind.

Nashik, Pune and Ahmednagar are leading as Nashik has 30.27, Pune, 21.42 and Ahmednagar, 21.32 lakh pits in which to plant trees.

Thane has dug 10.39 and Palghar, 9.13 lakh pits for plantation. As Latur, Osmanabad and Beed are the Marathwada districts worst-affected by the drought, they lag behind in the plantation plan. Latur has a forest cover of 0.56%, Osmanabad, 0.64%, and Beed, 2.44%. The three districts plan to plant about 5.5 to 9.6 lakh trees each.

“We have received a tremendous response by the people and government departments that registered online. We have 5.32 crore saplings, which will be given to NGOs and citizens at 50% of the cost. We have appointed families to take care of 1,000 trees each,” said Mungantiwar.