In a major achievement, the Forest Department has managed to supply over 3 crore saplings used during Amrit Brikshya Andolan 2.0 from its 54 nurseries vindicating the announcement made last year by Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma after a record achievement during Amrit Brikshya Andolan.
A major percentage of saplings were purchased from private nurseries last year as the State went about achieving targets set during the ABA. However, once Dr. Sarma announced his intent, Divisional Forest Officers across the State were entrusted by senior officials of the Forest Department to supply saplings from their nurseries come ABA 2.0.
Among those who went looking for required infrastructure for a nursery after last year’s ABA was Mukut Chandra Das, of Nalbari Social Forestry Division. He found a piece of land spanning 5 ha near Borbhag. Work on the nursery started on September 8, 2023, and in no time Uriam, Big-leaf Mahogany, belleric Myrobalan Indian gooseberry, Chebulic Myrobalan, Elephant apple saplings numbering eight lakhs were planted on the five hectares.
“We took the announcement of the Chief Minister very seriously. We went about our target in a dedicated manner. Despite almost two bouts of floods, wherein we lost 50% of our saplings, we managed to pull things back. We also procured saplings from Dhubri, Darrang, and Kokrajahar,” Das told Asom Barta over phone.
“The entire district was excited just like last year. We had feedback from the distribution centres that those who had volunteered to plant saplings were anxious on procuring them from these centres at the earliest. In fact, some of these participants also planted saplings by managing on their own,” Das informed this newsletter.
Forest officials in Dibrugarh had a similar story. They started working on their own nurseries from last October. Three nurseries were set up at Dillighat in Namrup, Jokai, and Chabua. “Two nurseries at Namrup and Jokai were under my Division. We managed 8.5 lakh saplings from these two. The balance 2.5 lakh saplings of the targeted 11 lakh were procured from the nursery at Chabua,” Sandip Bendi, DFO, Dibrugarh told this reporter. He added that big-leaf Mahogany, Kadam, Neem, Chittagong Wood were planted majorly in the district.
Altogether 61 commercial varieties of saplings were planted by the Forest Department in their nurseries.These varieties were distributed through 4,000 distribution centres across the State.
Work on a nursery in Hamren Division in West Karbi Anglong district began in November 2023 on 5 hectares of land. This nursery managed to supply 8 lakh saplings. Forest official Rajiv Ingti told this reporter that they managed to plant 7.95 saplings in ABA 2.0 distributing varieties like Agarwood, Big-leaf Mahogany, Chittagong Wood, Tree Bean through 82 distribution centres.
