AGATSINGHPUR: In the wake of alarming rise in incidents of lightning strikes, a palm tree plantation drive has been started by the district administration.The Forest department has been instructed to create awareness among residents of coastal villages on palm trees and their ability to save human beings from lightning strikes. Lightning has claimed as many as 50 lives in the last five years in the district. Most such deaths were reported from coastal villages. The palm trees act as a shield for human beings on the ground especially paddy fields during lightning.
The State Government, taking a serious note of the situation, had directed district collectors and forest officials to undertake massive plantation off palm trees on barren land and road side. Jagatsinghpur Collector Yamini Sarangi, acting on the directive, recently instructed the forest officials to distribute palm saplings among locals as part of the plantation drive.
Forest Ranger Officer, Jagatsinghpur Balram Sahoo said that the Forest department has decided to distribute 1.80 lakh seedlings of different types of trees. “We have advised locals to plant one palm tree between two different varieties of trees at a gap of 3 to 4 metre”, he said. Sahoo said that the department has launched a massive plantation programme on seven hectares of land in Madhysasan village under Biridi block where 1,000 palm trees along with 11,200 other trees will be planted. Notably, thousands of palm trees were uprooted across the district during the super cycl one of 1999.
