Haritha saplings guzzle 280 crore litre of water

Hyderabad: The government’s Telanganaku Haritha Haaram has become a water guzzler consuming 40-45 crore litres per month. Nearly 30 crore of the 40 crore saplings raised last year that could not be planted due to lack of rains continue to be watered in 4,213 nurseries. Many of these saplings have crossed the ideal plantation height of 1-1.5 metres. As the saplings are kept in plastic bags, which retain moisture, and keeping in mind the acute water crisis, forest officials say that a sapling given 200 ml of water once in three-four days.

That’s 6 crore litres of water for 30 crore saplings. If each sapling is watered once in four days, 42 crore litres of scarce water is being used every month. These saplings have been in nurseries for nearly five months and will be there till June, by when the saplings would have consumed 280 crore litres. And this is in the city alone. Each district is growing around 1.5-2 crore seedlings, which means 2 crore more litres per month. As per the government targets, every year 40 crore saplings should be planted across the state, amounting to around 40 lakh in each Assembly constituency.

This figure is still short of the 40-crore target. Each district must grow around 2.5-5 crore saplings depending on the number of Assembly constituencies it has. Divisional forest officers (social forestry) told DC that the main source was groundwater, even in districts where the level has gone down to 15-23 metres below ground level – as per January data in districts like Medak, Ranga Red-dy, Mahbubnagar and Nizamabad. The government which spent lakhs on the scheme, creating caller tunes, releasing posters and videos, seems to have learnt its lesson. This year the government allocated Rs 47 crore against nearly Rs 300 crore of last year, of which only around Rs 163 crore was released.