This week’s wet spell has done a world of good to the Haritha Haram programme. It has helped in planting more saplings while stabilising the saplings that were already planted across the State.
Against this year’s target of planting 40 crore saplings across the State, the district-wise progress as on Thursday revealed that nine districts have already crossed 20% of their target in one week. “Kamareddy district is leading by achieving 43% of its target and it will not be a surprise if it meets the target in a week,” the officials say. Twenty districts were in the range of 10 to 20% and only in three districts – Sircilla, Jogulamba and Sangareddy, the plantation was 10% so far.
The plantation programme would continue till the end of monsoon (September-end). Since the launch of the third phase of Haritha Haram on July 12, 7.67 crore saplings have been planted, on an average of about 80 lakh to 90 lakh every day. But the scope for survival would be greater if the plantation was completed well before September-end.
The directive to the district officials, therefore, has been to complete the plantation of saplings first in the rainfed areas for bloc plantation in reserve forest areas, in lands of absentee landlords and bunds of agricultural fields to take advantage of the rainy season. Avenue plantation could be taken up later as it would have assured watering by water tankers. The survival rate in bloc plantations was generally 90% or more. In the last two years, of the 49 crore saplings planted, 60% of them survived on an average. The Chief Minister has been keen on making all the effort to improve the existing forest area — from open scrub to medium dense, dense and very dense over a period of time.