Plantation drives at same spot for 2 years: BJP MLA in Assam assembly

A ruling BJP legislator claimed in the Assam assembly on Thursday that the state forest department carried out plantation drives at an area for two successive years, alleging that ''not a single sapling'' survived there in the first year.

Atul Bora, raising the matter during the Question Hour, said that saplings worth Rs 8 lakh were planted in Sonapur area of his Dispur constituency last year during ‘Van Mahotsav’ by then forest minister Parimal Suklabaidya.

He also said Chandra Mohan Patowary, who has since taken over the department, again undertook a plantation drive at the same place during the same programme and claimed that none of the plants survived in the previous year.

Patowary, now the forest minister, maintained that it was not correct.

This year, plantation drives were carried out in different areas which are near the place where such an exercise was undertaken last time, he said.

The minister also said the plantation drive last year was carried out on the right side of the spot and this year, it was done on the left, with a road running between the two sides.

He also claimed that ‘some of the saplings’ did survive.

The minister further said that no money under any other scheme was spent for procuring the saplings as it was done under the ‘Van Mahotsav’ programme.

Refusing to accept the reply, Bora asserted that crores of rupees are spent in nurturing saplings at forest department nurseries and it would be wrong to say that no money is spent on the saplings.

The BJP MLA also claimed that natural water bodies were being encroached and roads damaged due to the movement of heavy vehicles of cement factories in Sonapur area.

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