Hyderabad: Protect environment & raise gardens, people urged

Hyderabad: To bring awareness about the importance of the environment and health on the eve of the 'World Environment Day', the City of Terrace Gardens – an umbrella group of garden enthusiasts from both the Telugu States, has organised a 'morning walk' at KBR Garden here.

Around 500 garden enthusiasts, carrying CTG batches and holding placards with messages of environmental importance, took part in the walk early Sunday morning. The walk started at 6 am and covered at least four km of internal area.

Men and women of all ages, some along with toddlers, were seen walking on the line with a message to keep the environment clean from all sorts of pollutants.

'Without nature we have no future' and 'Don't destroy the greenery and don't spoil the scenery' were the few messages that were given to urge people to protect the ambient environment for their better future.

Saplings of different indoor and outdoor varieties, besides seed packets were distributed among the participants to help them raise gardens.

Dignitaries like Raghunandan Rao, Secretary and Commissioner Agriculture, also turned up for the walk to encourage the garden enthusiasts. Besides, Commissioner Horticulture L Venkatram Reddy, Deputy Director, Horticulture Vijay Prasad, Narsimha Das and Dr. AV Rao of Horticulture Society, Public Gardens, participated in the walk.

Reacting to an overwhelming response to the walk, Srinivas Harkara, the founder of City of Terrace Gardens group, said, "It is quite encouraging to see that more and more people are connecting with nature through various means, like raising gardens in their backyards or roofs. At the same time, the government should come forward with adequate measures to make all components of gardening available for garden enthusiasts at a subsidised rate that help them keep the passion to continue without putting a pause."