Hyderabad: Months ahead of monsoon, Gram Panchayats gearing up for Haritha Haram

Hyderabad: Though monsoon season is months away, the Gram Panchayats have been gearing up for the Haritha Haram programme to take up plantation drive under the scheme.

The GPs have taken up the works of establishing nurseries and raising the plants. In the next four months they would produce enough number of saplings for their plantation during the monsoon season.

The Haritha Haram programme would be taken up in June after the commencement of the monsoon season. Saplings would be planted in the villages and their surroundings. It has been decided in the past to plant about 40,000 plants in each village.

The GPs have been directed to prepare the saplings by that time keeping the problem of shortage of plants in the Haritha Haram programme last year. The GPs have fallen short of the target during the previous round of programme.

According to sources, it has been decided to raise about 23 crore saplings through the nurseries in the villages. On the whole about 11,000 nurseries have been established in the Gram Panchayats with the help of Integrated Tribal Development Authority and District Rural Development Authority.

Out of the target or raising 23 crore saplings so far 5.3 crore saplings have been raised. The GPs have been strictly instructed to reach the target by end of May, this year. The job card-holders services have been used to raise the nurseries. The MGNREGS workers have filled the polythene covers with soil and put the seeds in them in most of the nurseries.

The sapling raised in the polythene covers would be protected for the next four months and they would be handed over to the volunteers of the Haritha Haram programme. The Panchayat Raj and Rural Development department has spent about Rs 11 crore for this purpose. About 1.80 lakh MGNREGS workers have been entrusted with the responsibility of raising the saplings and their protection.

The officials have strictly instructed the GPs to ensure that all the saplings survive for the next four months so that they would be available for the Haritha Haram programme. Though saplings in the past also were raised in nurseries, most of them died due to lack of protection and watering.

The GPs have been told to use the material component of the MGNREGS programme to fetch water through the tankers and bore wells to the nurseries. Each MGNREGS workers would be given target of ensuring the survival of the plants.