Chennai, (Samajweekly) The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is on a massive drive to plant green saplings in all the parks and road medians and along the river banks to increase the green cover in the city.
Chennai Mayor R. Priya in a statement on Sunday said that the green saplings will be selected as per the opinion of the ward councillors.
There are 100 divisions in Chennai corporation and the plan is to plant atleast 50 saplings in each division. These saplings will be jointly monitored by the ward councillors as well as the officials of the Greater Chennai Corporation.
Priya, in the statement, said: “We have planted over 45,000 saplings near the Adayar river and it has been maintained well and additional plants will be kept in the area.”
The Mayor also said that saplings will be planted in the banks of the Cooum river, Kosasthaliyar River, and Buckingham Canal embankments and that this would increase the green cover in the city.
The Corporation, according to the Mayor will also be planting saplings in the parks in Chennai. There are 786 parks in Chennai at present and of this 584 are maintained on a contract basis, 145 parks are maintained by the civic body and 57 parks are adopted and maintained by the general public.
The Mayor said that under the Singarai Chennai project infrastructural development, works have been conducted in the Chennai corporation schools and the corporation is planning to plant Miyawaki forests in school premises on the basis of the availability of land.