Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 15 Jul: BJP workers and families will mark the folk festival Harela by launching a month-long tree-planting campaign, ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam (One Tree for Mother)’, under which it aims to plant more than 6 lakh saplings across the state. During the campaign, starting on 16 July and running until 15 August, a minimum of 50 saplings would be planted at each booth with the participation of ministers, MPs, MLAs, local representatives and party office-bearers, who will mobilise public cooperation for the drives. To ensure smooth implementation, the party has constituted teams from state to mandal level and assigned responsibilities for the programme.
State general secretary Kundan Parihar said the drive will coincide with Harela, a festival that celebrates environmental protection and conservation, and will be observed as “Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’. With the consent of state president Mahendra Bhatt, a state team has been formed under the coordination of state vice-president Rajendra Bisht to scale up the campaign. As state co-convenors, responsibility has been given to women’s wing president Ruchi Bhatt, Kisan Morcha president Mahendra Singh Negi and youth wing president Vipul Mendoli.
In his message on the maha-abhiyaan, state president Bhatt has appealed to all the party workers, the office-bearers and the general public to partake in planting with full heart, word and deed. He said environmental protection and conservation are integral to Indian culture, and that Uttarakhand has served nature generation after generation through Harela. He added that this auspicious folk festival gives everyone another chance to honour Mother Earth and one’s mother by planting a tree in her name, and urged people to carry forward the tradition of the land by planting as many trees as possible in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal. He added that the present generation must give the future generations the gift of a safe environment by contributing the precious act of planting trees today.
Parihar said a detailed plan has been prepared to take this nationwide, eco-friendly campaign to every corner of the state. Over the next month, each booth in the state will plant at least 50 trees. For the campaign’s success, the party organisation has set up special committees at district and mandal levels to secure public cooperation through various programmes across all the 11,729 booths in the state. Booth-level coordination will finalise the overall framework and plan for the drive, and arrangements will be made in advance for site selection, digging pits and supply of saplings to ensure organised plantation.
Parihar added that elected representatives will play a crucial role in the campaign. The MPs have been asked to organise a minimum of 10 plantation programmes in their constituencies, while the MLAs, district panchayat chairpersons, mayors, municipal and panchayat presidents and block chiefs will hold at least 15 plantation events each in their respective areas. The campaign will also assign explicit responsibility for the protection and maintenance of the saplings. After planting, specific workers will be designated to look after and safeguard each sapling to ensure its survival and growth.
