Indian government aims to increase green cover in Uttar Pradesh by 2030

The Uttar Pradesh government will plant 350 million tree saplings in an annual campaign this year.

Minister of state for environment, forests and climate change (independent charge) Arun Kumar Saxena announced that preparations for planting would begin in March with soil work and saplings would be grown in nurseries.

Last year, 350 million trees were also planted in the state under the Vriksharopan Janandolan 2022 programme.

The government aims to increase Uttar Pradesh's green cover to 15 percent by 2030 and ambitious sapling planting targets have been set every year since 2017.

According to the State of Forest Report (SoFR) 2021, 9.2 percent of the state's total geographical area (GA) has green cover (which includes both forest and tree cover).

In 2013, this represented 8.8 percent of the total GA in the state.

The 2021 biennial report showed an increase of 91 square kilometres in green cover in 2019, as reported by IANS, a partner of TV BRICS.