The World Environment Day on Monday, June 5, will see the Forest Department planting 3,600 saplings to shore up the city’s green cover.
But this is just one of the few initiatives and the authorities are mulling to plant tall saplings covering a stretch of 145 km within the city in due course.
The plan is to raise 43,500 tall saplings in the departmental nurseries and taken up for plantation. The Deputy Conservator of Forests K.N. Basavaraj, said that 300 saplings can be planted on a stretch of 1 km and covering 145 km will entail planting 43,500 saplings. The cost of the project is expected to be ₹48.50 lakh and will give a boost to the city’s green cover, he added.
Once the financial clearance is approved, it will be taken up under Mysuru Greening Urban Area concept and apart from 145 km of linear plantation, there are plans to identify open spaces of institutions and government offices and go for dense plantation apart from residential areas.
On Monday, 500 tall saplings will be planted on the Karnataka Police Academy campus as well and will cover nearly an hectare of open land. But, if dense plantation is taken up, then 500 saplings can be planted in half acre plot, said Mr. Basavaraj.
Apart from the KPA, the Income Tax Department and the University of Mysore have evinced interest in dense plantation as part of Urban Forestry programme. All these are imperative given Mysuru’s rapid growth and urbanisation, he added.
KAPY popular among farmers
In the rural hinterland, the forest department is promoting Krishi Aranya Prothsaha Yojane which entails distribution of saplings to farmers for plantation on their private land.
There is an incentive component built into the scheme and if the farmer ensures the survival of a sapling for one year, he or she will receive ₹35 to encourage them to nurture the sapling for at least one year, ₹40 if the sapling survives in the second year and ₹50 if the sapling survives for the third year.
So, farmers can receive a cumulative sum of ₹125 if each sapling is conserved and nurtured for 3 years. Considering that the farmers take up scores of saplings for plantation it serves as an additional source of income to them, according to Mr. Basavaraj.
For the year 2023-24, 1,96,000 saplings planted during the previous three years, have survived and the forest department will distribute ₹79 lakh by way of incentive to 1,096 farmers. Hebbevu is among the fast moving species sought by the farmers as it can be harvested after six to seven years. There are certain species that does not require permission from the forest department either to fell or to transport and these are in demand.
The department has planted 4.88 lakh seedlings during the last three years and 13,13,100 seedlings have been distributed to the public during the same period. Such initiatives are driven by the imperatives of improving the district’s green cover which is pegged at only 9 per cent as against 33 per cent stipulated in the forest laws.
