July 14, 2019
Weeklong Van Mahotsav begins today
Every year Van Mahotsav is celebrated across Bangla for seven days beginning July 14. Its main purpose is to spread awareness about the plantation of trees among people.
The Forest Department is in charge of the celebrations across the State, whose primary activity is planting of seedlings. Schools and college students, elected representatives as well as the general public will be participating in the celebrations.
Every year tens of lakhs of seedlings are planted in every district and distributed in schools and educational institutions. Last year, around two crore seedlings were planted across the State, in schools, colleges and other institutions and even in defence installations, and all these were distributed free of cost. The year before, it was 1.8 crore seedlings.
Like every year, this year too, a series of programmes will be held by the Forest Department from July 14 to 20.
- Distribution of up to 5 seedlings per individual in Kolkata at the rate of Rs 2 per seedling
- Distribution of up to 100 seedlings to any institution in Kolkata on request at the rate of Re 1 per seedling
- Distribution of up to 5 seedlings per individual free of cost in other parts of the State
- Distribution of up to 100 seedlings to any institution on request free of cost in other parts of the State
- Providing of 1,000 seedlings to every MLA by senior forest officials of their respective areas
- Organising of planting programmes by zilla parishads using the seedlings distributed by the Forest Department
- Cultural programmes, tree-planting programmes, seminars on wildlife conservation and man-animal conflict, sit-and-draw competitions, joint patrolling in forests by joint forest management committee (JFMC) members, etc. across Bangla on July 14
