Port Blair, Aug 02: The Directorate of RD, PRIs & ULBs, A& N Administration has taken several initiatives after the launch of campaign, ”Save a seed, plant Trees campaign”, by Shri JitendraNarain, the Chief Secretary.Under the initiative, the Directorate of RD has planted more than 1100 fruit-bearing trees and collecting seeds from all the clusters and villages of Gram Panchayats of UT. So far the Directorate has received approx. 500 seeds of mango, Lemon, orange, papaya, jackfruit, custard apple, tamarind etc.
The campaign is launched to ensure food security in the Islands, which includes plantation of Fruit & Vegetables in Government complexes and cover public spaces to ensure food security. The campaign also aims to plant flower saplings along the road side for beautification and create awareness on how to generate saplings out of saved seed and plant more saplings.
With the launch of “Save a seed, Plant a Tree” campaign launched by the Andaman and Nicobar Administration, the Directorate of RD, PRIs & ULBs has been taking several initiatives for mass mobilization and to take the campaign to grass root level. The seed collection initiative is carried out by the sanitary worker of Swachh Bharat Mission-G. The sanitary workers are collecting seed on daily basis along with collection of door to door segregated waste. After collection, these seeds will be accumulated species wise and handed over to the respective Agriculture Depots in the areas. Under the campaign, the Directorate has focussed on mobilization of the 1000 odd SHG members spread across the 70 Gram Panchayats and tribal areas in the Islands. The SHG members have commenced sapling plantation of fruit bearing trees in their premises and also encouraging other community members to take up the initiative.
Further, the Directorate has issued instructions to the sanitary workers of the Gram Panchayats to also collect used seeds from the households, markets etc along with the routine Door to Door waste collection. The drive is ensuring daily collection of fruit bearing seeds. These collected seeds are handed over to the Sub-Depots under agriculture department. The aim is to make the Sub-Depots the hub for fruit bearing seeds and shall act as a repository of different varieties of seeds.
Under the campaign, the Department has also scaled up plantation of trees along Village Roads, SWM Clusters, assets of the local bodies and government buildings.
Taking ahead the plantation of fruit bearing trees in the Islands, RD Department have managed to plant.
1. 1080 fruit bearing trees in the Govt. Building of RD.
2. 1500 fruit bearing saplings by the Self Help Groups (SHGs) and Community Resource Persons (CRPs) in their respective residence.
3. Under Save the Seed Campaign, 1480 Seeds have been collected so far from different Gram Panchayats and handed over to the Agriculture Department for further proceeding.
More such initiatives shall be carried out in the coming days across the Islands by the Department towards “Green and Clean Islands”.
