Ambitious tree planting drive enthuses the green brigade

Questions remain on protecting the large number of saplings

While welcoming the recent initiative of the government to plant 75,000 saplings in Puducherry, environmentalists want the administration to put in place a proper mechanism to improve green cover. The government, at the instance of Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, launched a programme to plant 75,000 saplings, a majority of them on Forest Department land at Manapet. Inaugurating the programme early this month, Dr. Tamilisai had given a clarion call to the government to scale up the number of saplings to be planted to 7 lakh in the coming months.