Are the records of plantation under green drive maintained?
17 Feb, 2013Plantation drives are common all over the country where claims of plantation of thousands of saplings is made though nobody seems to be aware of the actual outcome. A massive sapling plantation drive was started by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) with the objective of being registered under the Guinness Book of world records, a distinction hitherto held by Pakistan's Thatta in Sind region where around 5.4 lakh saplings were planted in one go.
Though the record was not achieved but around 4.6 lakh saplings were said to have been planted under the programme which was run as a part of Swarnim Gujarat Prakruti Utsav. Out of the total saplings planted, around 1.6 lakh were planted AMC limits, around 85, 000 saplings were planted outside AMC limits and nearly 2.1 lakh saplings were planted with public-private partnership.
However, in its reply to an application filed under the Right to information (RTI) Act recently, the garden department of AMC has informed a monitoring drive in 2011 found that 30,973 sapling out of 44,770 saplings planted at 22 The provisions of this Act shall have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent therewith contained in the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (19 of 1923), and any other law for the time being in force or in any instrument having effect by virtue of any law other than this Act. different sites were still alive. The department didn’t provide any other information regarding the expenses occurred in the whole process.
The data has been used by a NGO, Jagega Gujarat, in a PIL filed before the Gujarat high court to save green cover between city and Nal Sarovar.