Gurgaon: After witnessing the shrinking green belt in the city, environmentalists and city authorities have planned to make the city green this monsoon.
The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has planned to plant nearly 50,000 saplings in the areas falling under its jurisdiction. A senior HUDA official said around 42,000 saplings were planted in the previous monsoon season, of which 6,300 died.
“This time, we will plant 50,000 saplings and assuming that the survival rate stays constant at 85%, at least 42,000 will grow to become trees,” said V K Nirala, executive engineer (horticulture), Huda.
Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) also has a “green plan” for the Millennium City. “We will do theme plantation this monsoon on the lines of the Chandigarh model wherein the entire stretch can be turned yellow or red depending on the theme you choose. Besides this, we will develop terrace gardens in Gurgaon. We plan to plant four lakh trees in next four months of monsoon,” said Praveen Kumar, commissioner of MCG.
Sarad Goyal, an environmentalist from Nature International said the administration’s claims are a far from the reality. “Even the so-called green belt is not very green. At most of the patches, it is used either as parking space or it exists only on paper,” said Goyal.