Eye soothing greenery in Karimnagar

Karimnagar: Various plants in the nurseries that lay like a green carpet on the ground gives a soothing effect to the eyes, which bear the brunt of scorching sun.

The Telangana government had introduced 'Telangana Ku Haritha Haram' aimed at increasing the State's green cover to 33%. The government's flagship programme was launched on 3 July 2015 and it was to be completed by 2019. The goal of the project is to plant 230 crore saplings.

Rural development and Forest department officials are engaged in growing nurseries of various plants in Government School grounds and government lands to be distributed as part of Haritha Haram. They are struggling day and night to raise 2.30 crore seedlings. Plantation will start once the rainy season commences.

The government want plantation to be taken up in every corner of the village for maintaining ecological balance and for quickening the afforestation process.

As part of this programme, the government made it compulsory to set up Gram Panchayat Haritha Haram nurseries in every village and make available all types of plants for planting at every place like houses, bund, block, avenues, community, institutions, tank bund etc.

There are 276 nurseries in Karimnagar district, out of this, 207 are maintained by Rural Development Department while the remaining 69 nurseries are maintained by Forest Department. The saplings in these nurseries are ready for plantation once the rains start.

The department officials had taken several steps to protect the saplings in the nurseries from the heatwaves by arranging green shades. Also. one Vanasevak has been engaged exclusively for protecting and maintaining the nurseries.

MGNREGS will bear the overall expenditure for maintenance of nurseries, pitting and plantation, watering etc.

District Collector has allotted department-wise targets to achieve the plantation targets in the district. The details are shown below:

A few important types of species raised by the Rural Development: