Virudhunagar district administration has embarked on an ambitious project named, “Green Dawn” aimed at sustainable greenery programme by convergence of resources from various departments.
The innovative concept of Virudhunagar Collector J. Meghanath Reddy, is to ensure success of existing mass tree plantation programmes, increase green cover, convert barren land into green spaces and make them sustainable by creating supporting infrastructure.
“Often, mass tree plantation drives do not produce the desired result due to lack of care and infrastructure,” Mr. Meghanath said. To overcome this, the district administration has planned to create farm ponds and sink borewells to irrigate the saplings.
The administration has initially identified five places in the district with five acres to 20 acres of barren land, which would be transformed into a green one.
“We have planned massive tree plantation – including fruit-bearing, trees for timber, herbal plants, fodder crops along with setting up of vermicompost yard to make it sustainable,” he said.
Workers and funds of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), general fund of the village panchayats and that of Animal Husbandry Department would be mobilised for the programme.
“We have dug up a farm pond under MGNREGS to harvest rain water and sunk a borewell with panchayat funds to take care of the trees in the event of monsoon failure,” the Collector said.
Initially, the work will be implemented in Kariyapatti, Sivakasi, Sattur, Watrap and Aruppukottai blocks.
In later stage, at least one such work will be taken up in each block even if it is on a smaller extent of land. “We now found that several pockets of land have been left barren in various places and we are trying to remove the shrubs and go for tree plantation,” he added.
The project involved no additional cost but only meticulous planning to make optimum usage of the available resources.
As part of “Green Dawn” mass tree plantation was taken up on six acres of grazing land in Cunnoor under Watrap block. The area would be provided earthen bund, farm ponds, 500 fodder giving trees, 300 fruit-bearing trees, 200 timber-giving trees, 1,200 casuarina trees, 1,500 herbal plants.
The entire land would be fenced and two water tanks for cattle would be constructed. The project would be implemented at a cost of ₹46.28 lakh.
