Shimla: In August, 2008, Forest Department had undertaken the ‘Jan Jan sanjivini Van Abhiyan’, in which over 15 lakh plants–30 varieties of trees, 13 varieties of shrubs and 37 varieties of herbs were distributed to all the families of Himachal Pradesh for plantation. When the survival rate of plantation over a two month period was surveyed the result came out that Rampur circle emerged with maximum percentage of survival plants i.e. 98.54, then came 98.4%, 97%, 94.3%, 92.87%, 92.17%, 91.73%, 84.4%, and 79.66% in Wildlife (south) circle, Great Himalayan National Park circle, Nahan circle, Bilaspur circle, Mandi circle, Dharamshala circle, Wildlife (north) circle, Kullu circle, respectively. Whereas Shimla, the State capital rated minimum that is 76.19 per cent survival rate.
The information was given by Himachal Pradesh Forest Minister J.P.Nadda. He said that next monsoon the forest department had decided to launch the programme in a grand scale with 1.19 crores plants to be planted.
He added that to mark people’s participation in the programme, either a peepal or bargad plant would be given to 9269 identified villages situated in the sub-tropical region in the state below a height of 4500 ft with a tree guard, to be looked after by the villagers.
Raised in Shimla and originally from Mandi district, Disha wears many caps which includes being part of a lead team of a fast growing IT company based out of Chandigarh. Earlier Disha was associated with My Himachal and visits Shimla regularly.