Punjab has launched a large trees planting campaign as part of the “Plant Pakistan” Pakistan “initiative, aimed at planting trees more than 48,368 acres of land in the province.
The main minister of Punjab, Maryam Aurangzeb, said that under the direction of chief minister Maryam Nawaz, the target was to plant 42.5 million plants.
For exercise 2024-25, the plan is to plant 7.361 million trees more than 8,496 acres of land. To this end, 1.8 billion rupees were allocated during the current financial year, with 1.085 billion rupees already spent, representing 60% of the total budget.
She also mentioned that during spring, 5.966 million trees would be planted more than 6,637 acres of land. The planting of trees take place at more than 300 locations across Punjab, notably Lahore, Kasur, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Murrier, Rawalpindi, Sargodha and Muzaffargarh.
The project includes a variety of trees, such as Moringa, Pin, Neem, Acacia, Shisham, Moutarde, Bakaian, Semal and Arjun, as well as fruit trees. These will not only reduce air pollution but will also improve the environmental beauty of the region.
The project, which should cost a total of 8 billion rupees, targets at green forests, banks, road sites, the Porthohahar region, Murrier and Desert. To date, 2.73 million young trees have been planted on 4,000 acres of land, and the project is progressing rapidly.
Maryam Aurangzeb stressed that these efforts are not only crucial for environmental protection, but also throws the basics of a greener and healthier punjab for future generations.
Meanwhile, the Punjab government will establish horticultural parks and authorities (PHA) at the district level to create a “green punjab”.
These authorities will focus on the eradication of SMOG pollution, the renovation of old parks and the construction of new ones, with financing of billions of rupees. The Pied will operate directly under the Punjab government, bypassing the forest department and district administrations.
Currently, the Pieces operates in ten divisional seats throughout Punjab, notably Lahore, Sahiwal, Multan, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan and Gujrat. Their main task is to keep parks and build green belts to improve the environment and eliminate SMOG.
According to the available files, there are three to four large and 40 to 70 small parks in other major cities of Punjab, which were first supervised by the Forest Department and will now be under the jurisdiction of the Pha. In addition, there are about 900 parks and more than 2,000 green belts and parking areas in Lahore only.
