Social forestry dept achieves 90% sapling survival rate

Vijay Pinjarkar | TNN | Apr 29, 2020, 04:29 IST

Nagpur: At a time the state forest department is facing criticism for poor survival of plantations, its social forestry department (SFD) has showed the way by keeping alive 90% of its saplings planted in Narkhed and Umred.
SFD divisional forest officer (DFO) Geeta Nannaware informed that under the two crore ‘Greening Maharashtra’ drive, SFD had planted 14,500 saplings in gram panchayat areas under Narkhed and Umred ranges.
“After three years of nurturing, as per the scheme, we handed over these plantations this month to the respective gram panchayats (GPs) with over 90% survival. Of the 14,500 saplings, over 13,600 survived and grew 10-12 feet. Now these GPs will take care of these trees,” said Nannaware.
These roadside plantations were done in 2016-17 under rural employment guarantee scheme. In Umred, 7,500 saplings were planted along five roads between Dahegaon-Khapri (3km), Lohara-Dongargaon (2km), Tirkhuta-Navegaon Sadhu (3km), Makardhokda-VIT College (4km) and Umred-Fathepur (2km).
Similarly, in Narkhed of the 7,000 saplings planted, 6,680 survived. These were planted on six roads between Godhni-MP border (2km), Pandhri-Mowad (3km), Sawargaon-Yenikoni (2km), Mohadi-Narkhed (2km), Belona-Narkhed (2km) and Yenikoni-Chorkhairi (4km).
Nannaware said the planted saplings included neem, jamun, cashia, mahogany, shisu, karanj, gulmohar, peepal, amla and other native species. The plantations were done under Bihar pattern, where one person per 40 saplings, and a family per 200 saplings get employment for one year under the employment guarantee scheme for nurturing the saplings.
“In both Umred and Narkhed talukas we created 37,525 man days each for plantations in 28km in both places. We could achieve 90% survival of plantations due to hard work and dedication by our staff,” she added.