Less than 50% of Saplings Planted in Panjab Survive after 4 Years

In 2019, on the occasion of Guru Nanak’s 550^th birth anniversary, the Panjab government decided to plant 550 saplings in every village. The Forest Department provided fruit and shady tree saplings in over 12,000 villages. The MGNREGA scheme provided the services of laborers to plant the saplings. The total saplings came up to 7.2 million. This was a laudable step because Panjab’s forest cover is reduced to 3.6% due to intensive agriculture. Sadly, four years later, more than 50% of those saplings have perished. Raman Kant Mishra, Principal chief conservator of forests, said. ‘Our job was only to provide saplings to villages. The plantation and maintenance part were with the Rural Development Department.’ The survival rate of saplings was the lowest in Sultanpur Lodhi, the center point of the Guru Nanak celebrations. Inquiries from sarpanches (village heads) also indicate that most villages did not receive saplings. In March of the same year, in Tarn Taran, hundreds of activists of Baba Jagtar Singh’s kar sewa (volunteer service) group started pulling down the darshani deori (gateway) of the historic Gurdwara associated with Guru Arjan. When locals protested and prevented further damage, the kar sewaks claimed they had SGPC’s permission. The SGPC denied it. Now the SGPC has restored the razed portion of the Deori. Before initiating the renovation work, a meeting was held in this regard with experts of the Directorate of Cultural Affairs Archaeology and Archives Museum Punjab, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.