MMRDA plants over 51,000 trees on degraded forest land in Maha

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has planted over 51,000 trees in Maharashtra's Thane district to maintain green cover and save forests from getting degraded.

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'All se trees are endemic to Maharashtra'

MMRDA, which faced flak recently from activists over felling of nearly 2,000 trees in Aarey Colony of neighbouring Mumbai to build a Metro car shed, said such plantation activities would also help to compensate for any loss of green cover in future due to infrastructural work. Under 'green initiative', 51,151 trees have been planted on 46 hectares of degraded forest land in Kalyan- Shilphata area of Thane, MMRDA Commissioner R A Rajeev said on Tuesday.

All trees have been planted taking into consideration ecological balance. Most of trees are extremely good for environment, he said."All se trees are endemic to Maharashtra. Our efforts are to ensure that forest should t be degraded at any cost. Our main aim is to maintain minimum requirement of 33 per cent green cover," he added.

He said MMRDA was also taking plantation activities in advance for any projects that might require axing of trees in coming years. cost of plantation and maintenance of each tree for three years is around Rs 1,227, MMRDA said in a statement.

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