Mumbai, July 4: In a bid to make the state greener and to make the Van Mahotsav a success, the Maharashtra government has pledged to plant 13 crore saplings this monsoon. In a latest development, the forest department officials have claimed that out of 13 crore saplings it vowed to plant from July 1 to July 31, two crore plants have already been planted in four days across the state. Besides this, they are confident that they will be able to plant more than 13 crore saplings than expected.

As per the information received from officials, the plantation drive was carried out at 1,45,683 places in the state, in which around 2,16,771 people, groups and non-governmental organisation (NGOs) participated.

The officials further revealed that in their plantation drive, drought-prone hit regions Marathwada and Nanded topped the list of most trees planted. In these regions  a total of 33.1 lakh saplings have been planted. Chandrapur, which is second on the list, successfully planted 12.306 lakh saplings so far. Latur district came third in the list, with 11.12 lakh saplings. The Naxal prone region Gadchiroli came fourth in the list with 10.25 lakh saplings in just four days. Yavatmal planted 10 lakh plants and Palghar planted 9 lakh. Besides this, Ahmednagar, Beed, Nashik districts have planted around seven lakh saplings in these four days as per the data received.

To make Maharashtra a greener state, Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar pledged to plant 50 crore sapling in four years across the state. The announcement was made when the BJP-led state government came into power. Last year under the Van Mahotsav initiative, the state government managed to plant around five crore saplings, although it pledged to plant four crore, which was more than the expected number. Also, the initiative got recognition in the Limca Book of Records.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 04, 2018 07:35 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).