Plant trees to offset pollution, say forest officials, environmentalists

Ludhiana: The forested area in the Ludhiana district is so negligible that forest department and environment groups feel that it is an uphill task to increase the forest cover of the district, while celebrating the World Environment Day on Friday.
According to the Forest Survey of India (FSI) Dehradun report, which was released by it in December last year, Ludhiana district had a forest area of 58.92 sq km whereas in 2017, the area under forest in the district was 55 sq km.The report also stated that the forest cover of Ludhiana district was abysmally low at just 1.65% of the geographical area of the district, which is 3,578 sq km.
The district forest authorities said they are making efforts to increase forest cover of the district.
“We had retrieved 644 acres of forest land some years ago and recently we have recovered 35 acres of forest land at Mand Udhowal on Machhiwara Rahon road and Ladowal. Our focus is to retrieve forest land and plant trees there. This year, we have planned to plant three lakh plants, about 60%-70% of which will be state tree sheesham. We will also plant neem, arjun and kikar on canals and drains as there is scope for plantation at these places. We are also planning to plant such trees on the banks of Buddha Nullah,” said Charanjit Singh, divisional forest officer (DFO) of Ludhiana.
The NGOs that are involved in plantation process said they expect increase in forest cover in next few years. “We are coming up with micro forests in many areas of the state, including Ludhiana district. Such type of plantation has great results and plants have 100% survival. We are also encouraging people to plant trees. We hope that in some years, the results of our hard work will be visible, as a lot of NGOs are involved in such endeavour,” said Jatinder Manchanda, founder member of Sambhav Foundation, which had carried large-scale plantation in Ludhiana in 2014-15.
“Ludhiana has earned dubious distinction of being one of the most polluted cities in the world. The only way in front of the city to decrease the impact of pollution is through trees. We can and should go for massive plantation to increase the green cover to counter impact pollution,” said Bikramdeep Singh, a city resident.