Baripada: A group of youths here is making an attempt to improve the green cover in the town. They are on a mission to ensure that all the vacant spaces in Baripada wear a green look.
For the last six years, this group has been making an all-out effort to launch plantation drives. So far, these youths have planted about 2,000 trees of multiple varieties. They are now working under the banner ‘Sabuja Sundar Baripada’ and allowing only nature lovers to be its members.
Their mission started in 2014. To begin with, they took permission from the Baripada Municipality to plant trees at vacant spots in various areas of the district. “We planted 200 trees in the first year by collecting saplings from the forest department. Each member contributed funds, which we spent on labour and maintenance of the plants. Now, the trees have grown tall,” said Jitendra Mohanty, who leads the group.
Jitendra said he had developed interest in gardening since childhood.
The group spends the collected funds every month on the maintenance of the plants.
“We aim to plant at least 100 trees a year. We go for trees such as kadamba, nageswar, arjuna and even neem,” said Jitendra.
Starting from college students to homemaker women, the group is demographically diverse. Significantly, the youths recently started a new campaign to make the city ‘plastic free’ following the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in the district.
There is no day when Jitendra with his group members does not go out to visit various wards in the city to aware the residents on how to save the environment.
Members of the group ask the general public to take care of the plants and to plant more and more saplings on bare and unused lands in the area. However, they also advise the people to use cloth bags instead of polythene bags and also gift them cloth bags.
PNN