Across the city: CDA to plant 300,000 saplings during monsoon

13 million will be planted in Punjab, 75 million in K-P, 12 million in Sindh, 0.7 million in Balochistan

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has launched a tree plantation drive, wherein they intend to plant 300,000 saplings of various species across the city, during the upcoming monsoon season.

A meeting in this regard was held on Wednesday, which was attended by the CDA director-general (environment) and other senior officials of relevant authorities.

The CDA Member (Environment), Sanaullah Aman, said that participation of people from all walks of life was being ensured, to guarantee that the upcoming drive was a success, and added that special arrangements had been made to ensure proper growth of the saplings, once planted.

The drive will be launched on August 10, in the Rose and Jasmine Garden. The ceremony will be attended by officials, students of different educational institutes, and the general public.

In the meeting, the plan to plant 15,000 fruit trees at the Lake View Park was also revealed. The Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) had earlier set a target of planting 109 million saplings across the country during the upcoming monsoon season, starting August 14th.

Climate Change Minister Zahid Hamid, who had chaired an inter-ministerial and inter-provincial meeting a couple of weeks ago, had approved the target, after officials of provincial forest departments, federal ministries and other departments gave their input and shared their set targets for the upcoming monsoon season.

Of the 109 million saplings around 14.2 million will be planted under the Prime Minister’s five-year Green Pakistan Programme (GPP), which will also be formally launched in August.

According to MoCC, 13 million will be planted in Punjab, 75 million in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 12 million in Sindh, 0.7 million in Balochistan, three million in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and 4.1 million in the Fata.

Similarly, defence ministry will plant one million saplings, Heavy Industry (Taxila) 1,000 saplings, Pakistan Ordinance Factory 7,000 saplings and IUCN 200,000 saplings.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2016.