Bhubaneswar: In a bid to augment forest cover in urban settings, the state government is planning to undertake massive plantation drive in five municipal corporation areas of Odisha under ‘Nagar Van’ scheme.
Urban forests will be created in municipal corporations of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Sambalpur, Rourkela and Berhampur with an outlay of Rs 13.84 crore.
State Forest & Environment Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha has given this proposal to Union Environment, Forest & Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar and pressed for its early approval. Arukha was attending state forest ministers’ conference held through videoconferencing, Monday.
Arukha said that Odisha has a long tradition of forest conservation by forest dependent communities. Forest cover in the state has increased by 33.15 per cent, as per State Forest Report, 2019.
“Despite being prone to natural calamities like cyclones and floods, our green coverage has increased by an area of 929 sq km in the last two years and 4,586 sq km in last two decades,” he said.
“During the current financial year, our state has already raised Rs 13.70 crore saplings for plantation in over 1.30 lakh hectare area and distribution to public which is higher than the target set for Odisha by the Union government,” the minister pointed out.
The government has also decided to take up 100 school nurseries in the best performing schools having ‘eco clubs’, ‘national green corps’ in the state by utilising Central fund. Preparatory activities and process for identification of schools under School Nursery scheme are under process.
State government has already launched its online timber transport (TT) permit portal. National transit pass system portal (https://ntps.nic.in) is being closely monitored and will be seamlessly integrated with state’s TT permit portal (ttpermitodisha.in), whenever the modalities are shared by the Centre, he said during the meeting.
Under MGNREGS programme, in addition to the afforestation works, soil and moisture conservation activities, digging of trenches around forest, subsidiary silvi-cultural operations in timber coupes and forest road repair works have been taken up in large scale. “Our state is implementing Green Mahanadi Mission since 2018-19 with plantation in 1-2 km on both sides of river Mahanadi.” Arukha further said.
He requested the Union Minister for making provision of funds from CAMPA, a central scheme, for successful implementation of ‘Green Mahanadi Mission’ and for approval of proposal for disposal of 1,315 tonnes of red sandal wood.
During the meeting, Javadekar reiterated that all states must take measures to accelerate Nagar Van scheme, School Nursery scheme, plantation under 20 point programme, afforestation in catchment areas of 13 rivers, Lidar Survey for soil moisture conservation and National Transit Permit Portal.
Project dolphin and project lion are to be implemented in right earnest to augment their count in the country, Javadekar said.
