Rs25,000 crore plantation drive to increase Maharashtra’s green cover

Under criticism for the scanty green cover across the state and not utilising the Centre’s fund, the state government will plant 5 billion trees over next five years.

At present, only 16% of the land has trees --- this is much below the national average of 33%. With each tree plantation costing around Rs50, the estimated cost for the plantation of 1 billion trees is Rs5,000 crore. The state will claim the expenses from the Centre under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Chief secretary Ratnakar Gaikwad has told all gram panchayats to implement the scheme. “One million hectare land is required to plant 1 billion trees. A total of 2.40 lakh km could be covered from the border areas or the bands of farmlands, while each gram panchayat has been asked to plant 20,000 trees a year,” Gaikwad said.

“With 27,991 panchayats in the state, the plantation comes to 56 crore trees. The forest department has been directed to cover 2.5 lakh hectares of degraded area by planting 16 crore trees. Agriculture land will have 34 crore trees, taking the total to 1.5 billion trees a year. Every year, we expect at least 1 billion trees to survive,” he said.

The project has been undertaken on the lines of the Jewish National Fund in Israel, where 240 million trees were planted.

“Our project is much more ambitious than that,” he said.

“Six crore trees were planted last year. We are linking it to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme so that there will be no dearth of funding,” he said.