Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi said on Thursday that every person consumes an equivalent of seven trees per year, of their age and hence, it should be the moral obligation of all the citizens to plant that many trees as a repayment of debt to the earth.
There was no reason to believe that tree plantation could be done only during monsoon as the activity should be carried out round the year. The women especially could start a mission to plant trees with commercial and health benefits as part of ‘Mission Imli’, she said, addressing the participants of the Higher Defence Management Course of the College of Defence Management (CDM) here.
Talking on the topic ‘Women and child development and management of stray animals’, she drew from her childhood memories of growing up in military cantonments and how her mother would pledge to make the surroundings ‘cleaner and greener’. Women in the armed forces could be role models in these matters, she added.
The nine-week course, ‘Social awareness and life skills for responsible citizenship’, is being taken up by 152 officers (colonels and equivalent ranks of all three services), including from friendly foreign countries.
The CDM is offering the certificate programme for the second year in association with Osmania University (OU) and All India Management Association (AIMA). Rear Admiral Dushyant Singh Chouhan, Commandant, CDM, also spoke, a press release said.
