Chittoor district is all set to turn a shade greener, when the district machinery’s ambitious initiatives bear fruit.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's home district is not faraway from turning vision of ‘50% land area under green cover,’ into a reality.
Of the 15 lakh hectares in the district, 3.89 lakh ha are already under the Forest Department and 1.20 hectares of greenery is, however, not under the department, which takes the total green cover to more than 5 lakh hectares. Collector P.S. Pradyumna is confident of filling the shortage of 2 lakh hectares through horticultural plants and avenue plantation and also explains how.
Thrust on horticulture
After the copious rainfall, the officials have effectively convinced the farmers to go for commercial crops for rabi, a chunk of them favouring horticultural plants. While 22,000 hectares is the cropping area under the Department of Horticulture now, the target for this year is 40,000 hectares more under its ambit. Under NREGA, the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) and the District Water Management Agency (DWMA) are growing horticultural crops in 16000 hectares.
“Collectively, this will bring an additional 56,000 hectares under horticultural crops, which also means greenery,” he points out.
The official machinery has christened as ‘Brundavanam’ the novel scheme meant to turn villages clean and green, by slightly adapting a general greening initiative. The idea is to take up avenue plantation along the 1,365 km of interior roads leading to every village, of which 900 km has already been achieved. Under rural sanitation, the panchayats will manage garbage collection (through autorickshaws), transportation and disposal through composting and recycling. “One hundred and fifteen panchayats have already constructed compost yards and the rest are in the process,” observes Mr. Pradyumna.
As a report indicates a rise of water level by a significant 15 metres (from a depth of 25m in May), thanks to the seasonal rains, he hopes that the plan will be on track.
