New Delhi, July 12 (IANS) Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday took a resolve to turn environment protection into a mass movement among nearly 17,000 ‘Vriksh Mitra’ connected from across the country.

Chouhan presented a clear and clean roadmap to give environment protection the form of a concrete mass movement based on suggestions and dialogue received from ‘Vriksh Mitra’.

He decided that every family will plant a tree on occasions like birthdays, wedding anniversaries, birth of children, and pious memories of parents and turn these into ‘Tree Festivals’, so that slowly this tradition becomes a habit in every household.

Every ‘Vriksh Mitra’ will plant at least one tree in a year and take a resolve to connect at least five new people with this campaign, whose public announcement will be made through their post on social media so that a strong network can be prepared by Hariyali Amavasya on August 12.

Chouhan proposed forming committees of ‘Vriksh Mitra Pariwar’ at national, state, district, block and village levels to run the entire campaign in an organised framework, getting this structure formally registered and identifying fixed sites for plantation in panchayats and urban local bodies, where every auspicious work and government schemes – like Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Lakhpati Didi Yojana, programmes of Agriculture and Rural Development Departments – will start only by planting trees.

He was speaking at the ‘Environment Protection Resolve Programme and Vriksh Mitra Samvad’ organised at Pusa Complex in New Delhi.

The minister said that this is not only a question of environment, but a crisis of human existence – rising sea levels, increasing heat, polluted air, bad water and rapidly disappearing biodiversity are standing as direct threats to the life of coming generations.

Referring to events happening across the world and scientific facts, he said that if concrete steps are not taken now, the picture of 2050 and beyond can be very worrying.

—IANS

na/