Govt to Replenish Green Cover, Plant 100 Mn Trees

To counter the effects of chopping trees for infra projects, CM announces plantation campaign

- Yogesh Naik

MUMBAI: After chopping nearly 500,000 trees for infra projects in the last year, the state government has decided to plant a hundred million trees this year under a campaign called 'Green Maharashtra, Prosperous Maharashtra'.

The decision was taken at a meeting on Wednesday, and a target of another 100 million trees has been set for next year as well. CM Devendra Fadnavis said the campaign would succeed only if tree plantation became a public movement, and asked citizens to participate.

In the first term of the BJP government from 2014 to 2019, the then forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar had announced a target of planting 330 million trees, a claim contested by the Congress. The Maha Vikas Aghadi government had announced a probe into this. But after it lost power in 2022, the probe panel gave a clean chit to Mungantiwar.