DDA has given forest dept 638 hectares of land since 1975 to plant saplings

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has provided 638 hectares of land to the forest department to plant saplings along the Yamuna since 1975, and 624 hectares of that have been utilized, official data showed.

The forest department planted 4,85,526 saplings on the banks of the river during this period, according to the data.

The DDA handed over 139.5 hectares of land to the forest department for compensatory plantation against tree felling permission issued under the Delhi (Preservation) of Trees Act (DPTA) for various projects between 2014 and 2020.

A total of 1,65,086 saplings have been planted on this land, according to government data.

The DDA provided 106.02 hectares of land to the department for compensatory afforestation under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, between 2014 and 2021.

Of this, 92.17 hectares have been utilized for planting 1,18,640 saplings.

Earlier, the land-owning agency had given 392.8 hectares for plantation purposes at Garhi Mandu and Sonia Vihar between 1975 and 2003.

The Delhi government has set an ambitious target to increase the city's green cover from 22 percent at present to 25 percent in the next three years.

Currently, Delhi's green cover, comprising forest and tree cover, is 324 sq km or 21.9 percent of its total area, according to the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) released in 2019. It was 305.4 sq km or 20.6 percent in 2017.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)