LUCKNOW: In a mega drive, as many as 25 crore saplings were planted in a single day on Tuesday as the Yogi Adityanath government completed 100 days of its second term.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who completed 100 days in office on Monday, has set a target of plantation of 35 crore saplings by August 15 this year. The government has launched ‘Vriksharopan Jan Aandolan’, inviting people to contribute to the drive which is aimed at reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of global climate change
During such plantation drives, different types of forests — Shakti Van, Bas Van, Yuva Van, Nagar Van and Food Forests — will be established across the state. The drive will be run in collaboration with various government departments, NGOs, school children, defence personnel and villagers.
The forest cover of Uttar Pradesh — home to 230 million people — has gone up by more than 3 per cent in the last five years, compared to the national average of 2.89, as per the state government.
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Uttar Pradesh has a forest cover of 9.21 per cent across the state. Such plantation drives will only contribute to increasing the green cover around the lands of the state, it said.
CM Yogi planted a sapling in Chitrakoot as he launched the mega drive. Speaking on the occasion, he called upon people for greater participation in the plantation drive to make it a mass plantation movement.
“Uttar Pradesh has only 9.21 per cent of the state’s geographical area under forest and tree cover and massive plantation drives help increase the area under forest and tree cover. The Forest Department of the state with the active participation of other government departments and massive public participation has undertaken the remarkable work of planting nearly 100 crore saplings in the last five years,” as per the state government.
“Climate change mitigation requires excess atmospheric carbon dioxide to be absorbed and stored in vegetation and planting billions of trees is the best way to tackle the challenge. We are committed to increasing the forest cover of Uttar Pradesh state to over 15% of the total land area in the next five years,” said Manoj Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment, Forest and Climate Change.