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No more free saplings

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, JULY 9 .Gone are the days when one could carry a sapling home free of cost during the rainy days. The "Van mahotsavs'', conducted by the Rajasthan Forest Department in the past, used to distribute saplings of various varieties of trees to green the arid State. As there is no free lunch in the reformed economy there are no free saplings as well. In fact their rates are revised every two years to make them cost effective.

The Forest Minister, Laxminarain Dave, who met mediapersons today confessed that besides revising the price of the saplings from Rs.2 apiece to Rs.2.50 during the current season the Department had also to decide on discontinuing free distribution of saplings to various institutions like schools. "The Forest Department has only a meagre budget of 1 per cent of the total budgetary allocations in the State. Over the years this had been on the decline,'' he said. The current year's target is to distribute 1.20 crore saplings to cover an area of 30,600 hectares. Rajasthan, which has 32,488(9.49 per cent of the total area) sq km under green cover, has increased its forest area by 2496 sq kms from 1999 to 2001. As for the discontinuation of free saplings, the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Abhijit Ghosh, said the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation, which is funding the forestry projects in the State wanted the Rs.40 lakh provided by it for distribution of saplings to be a revolving fund. This necessitated a more cost effective approach, he pointed out.

The Forest Department runs as many as 755 nurseries in various parts of the State and the demand for plants is surely going up. In the urban pockets the demand is more for ornamental plants while in the country-side the seedlings of fruit trees like amla and jamun and shade-trees like neem and sheesham are much sought after.

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