Over 27L pits ready for planting 51L saplings

Indore: Ahead of a week-long drive to plant 51 lakh saplings, Indore district administration, with the help of different departments, has so far ensured digging of 27.68 lakh pits.
To meet the mega target, forest department has come forward to plant around 22.67 lakh saplings, including 15 lakh root-shoot. “Rroot-shoot of around 8 inch in length will be planted using crowbar as big pits are not required, which are being dug for saplings,” DFO Mahendra Singh Solanki said, adding that the forest department has so far dug close to 20 lakh pits.
As per the administration’s status report on Monday, Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC), which has undertaken the target of planting 15 lakh saplings, has so far dug close to 6 lakh pits, while zila panchayat, which has taken the target to plant 3.03 lakh saplings, has dug close to 2 lakh pits.
Indore Development Authority (IDA) aims to plant 2.09 lakh saplings, followed by horticulture department (1.5 lakh), district industries centre (1 lakh), LIC and the food department (50,000 each), all eight nagar parishads (30,000) and school education department (20,000).
“Apart from govt departments, many local organisations have also shown interest in the plantation drive,” ADM Sapna Lovanshi said adding that Indore will comfortably achieve the target of planting 51 lakh saplings in the next week of July.
Indore, as its initiative to plant 51 lakh saplings in the second week of July, will also make an attempt to set a Guinness World Record by planting 11 lakh saplings in Revati range. As per the Guinness Book of World Records, the most saplings planted in 24 hours is 9,21,730 and was achieved by forest department, govt of Assam at Udalguri, from September 13 to 14, 2023. TNN