Hyderabad: Telangana is among the top three states in the country in avenue plantation and ensuring their survival rate that is now placed at 87 percent to 93 percent of the 4,59,339 saplings planted.

Uttar Pradesh, which recorded a survival rate of 91 percent to 100 percent and Tamil Nadu at 95 percent scored better than Telangana. However, the fact is that Telangana is a much smaller State than these two. Uttar Pradesh planted 1,15,145 trees on the roadside while Tamil Nadu had a mere 24,094 saplings planted. Telangana State has planted four times more saplings than UP and almost 20 times more than Tamil Nadu, which makes the saplings' survival rate much more significant.

Odisha MP Prasanna Acharya replied to this subject while Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Babul Supriyo, shared these details in Rajya Sabha.

PARIVESH portal of the Ministry recorded the average number of trees affected by approvals for construction, expansion, and repair of roads under various schemes of Central and State Governments are 5,21,912 trees per year or 933 trees per proposal.

Planting trees on the roadside and the data regarding survival rate is mandated to Forest Department of respective State or UTs. Monitoring of roadside plantation works is also carried out internally by the State Forest Department as well as a system of third-party monitoring has been adopted by various States.

National Afforestation Programme (NAP) scheme does multi-level monitoring. The evaluation mechanism is done through the village-level by members of Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs), by way of social auditing by Forest Development Agency (FDA) at the District level and State Forest Development Agency (SFDA) at the State level.