Hyderabad: Telangana government on Friday launched the second phase of ‘Haritha Haram’ programme aimed to plant 46 crore plants to improve its green cover.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao inaugurated the fortnight long programme at Gundrampalli near Chityal in Nalgonda district, a district left with five percent green cover- the least in Telangana.

He joined one lakh green volunteers who planted over 1.25 lakh saplings all along the 165 km Telangana stretch of the Hyderabad-Vijayawada national highway.

People from all walks of life including students, NGOs and self-help group members and the general public took part in the green drive aimed to develop a green corridor all along the highway.

Flowering yielding and shade-providing trees were planted on either side of the highway. Similar plantation will be taken up along Mumbai, Warangal, Bengaluru and Nagpur highways.

The state government planned to plant a record 46 crore saplings, including 25 lakh in Hyderabad, during the season. Ministers, legislators and bureaucrats on took part in plantation programmes at various places in the state, including government offices and open areas.

The chief minister appealed to people to take up the plantation drive as an initiative of their own instead of considering it as purely a government-sponsored programme.

“People who are often complaining about the monkey menace in the villages and towns should realize the fact that the habitat of the monkeys was destroyed by us and it is now our responsibility to revive it,” he said.

Stating that the persisting drought conditions are our own making, he asked the people to help address the main cause of such calamities by taking up the plantation programme to arrest forest degradation.

IANS