Hyderabad: Planting of saplings for the state government’s afforestation programme, Telangana ku Haritha Haram, has almost come to a halt across the state due to scanty rainfall.
The programme, was launched on July 3 with an aim of planting at least 40 crore saplings this year. Till now, just about 1 crore saplings have been planted.
A majority of these were planted in the first week of the launch of the programme after which it dwindled to not more than 10,000 per day in most of the districts.
Sapling plantation in the forest areas has stopped in almost all districts whereas in non-forest areas, the figures are in a few thousands. The maximum number of saplings planted was in Adilabad district, at 33 lakh. Meanwhile it is only 1,105 in the forest areas of Hyderabad.
While the GHMC is yet to launch Haritha Haram, afforestation by other government departments in the city stands at just 4 lakh.
A senior official of the environment, forest, science and technology department said, “There are no rains. If we go ahead with planting, the saplings will not survive. We are waiting for rains.”
