Students of classes 5, 6 and 7 in Tiruvallur district are being asking to shower plants some love and affection, along with watering them daily.
Under a programme called My Earth - My Tree, each of the 75000 students in these classes are getting one sapling to take care for at least a year.
“This is the age when they would love to take some responsibility, to take care of a sapling. These students don’t have much academic pressure too. The children have been given plants that are six months to a year old along with small cards under which they should update the status every month. The children are being encouraged to name the tree saplings,” said Alby John Varghese, District Collector, Tiruvallur.
The district administration is also in the process of establishing kitchen gardens in 100 of the 500-odd schools. “The children would be involved in the gardens. It will help them in academics and also provide vegetables for the schools and the children. This would also help develop an interest in gardening among children,” Mr. Varghese added.
If the children don’t have space at their homes for these tree saplings, they can be planted inside the school campus. Saplings of trees including neem, tamarind, punga, kalyana murungai and naval that have been raised in nurseries run by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA).
V. Jayakumar, DRDA Project Director said that a total of 14 nurseries were being run under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the district. “It cost us Rs. 100 per sapling since workers have to be paid wages and there is also the cost of the farm inputs. We hope that through this scheme, the children would learn about the importance of trees in our eco system,” he added.
