Joint efforts by government and leading corporates like Tata Power and Adani Group in Chhattisgarh augur well for the nation’s vision of increasing green cover
Accelerated urbanization, vehicular pollution and falling of trees amongst other reasons have led to concerns over rapid deterioration of land and air quality. An awakened effort through private initiatives like those of Adani Group in Chhattisgarh, Tata Power, Kotak Mahindra bank, State Bank of India, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, Vodafone India in Madhya Pradesh etc., is gaining momentum.
Last year, Delhi became the first Indian state to pass the tree transplantation policy. It stated that ten saplings would be planted per tree dug up with roots intact and scientifically transplanted to another location instead of being cut.
This year, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) confirmed that the work for Central Vista Redevelopment project has started after taking requisite approvals. In the process, no tree is to be cut and the affected trees will be transported elsewhere, according to their spokesperson. As per a senior official of the environment & forest department of Delhi, CPDW has acquired permission to transplant a total of four hundred trees for the new parliament project.
On October 2020, the Delhi cabinet validated the tree transplantation policy in order to prevent cutting of tress for development works in the capital city. The concerned agencies will have to transplant eighty per cent of the affected trees to another location under this policy.
SankalpTaru is a social enterprise that implements and manages tree plantation activities and drives for corporate entities with or without significant carbon footprint from their projects and operations. Grow-Trees.com is another such enterprise which has partnered with several companies such as Tata Capital, Vodafone India and SBI Life Insurance to plant and maintain millions of trees.
Other big names that walked on similar paths are HCL Foundation which partnered with an NGO ‘Give Me Trees’ for planting 10,000 trees and Adani Group mining Chhattisgarh which successfully transplanted over 8,000 trees along with 296,059 saplings with eighty per cent survival rate at the ParsaKente site.
Additionally, Adani coal mines in Chhattisgarh have adopted green mining practices such as progressive land reclamation, geo blanketing, surface mining & afforestation of over 145,000 trees including the native species. Nearly 5,600 trees were eco-transplanted, with survival rate being eighty-five to ninety-five per cent.
For every tree that fell, 29 trees were planted by the Adani Group Chhattisgarh coal mining project. The group has been appreciated by many reputed international organizations with the International Association of Ports and Harbours classifying Mundra Port as the world’s greenest port. They also deployed a natural bio-shield of mangroves and native species on the coast of Gujarat.
Despite the fact that the country’s history is rich with instances of ecofeminism and forest protection, the present-day awakened efforts by the likes of Adani Group in Chhattisgarh’s green initiative, hold a testament to the nation’s awakening as far as environmental thinking is concerned.
