Surjit Singh Sahota, District Forest Officer of Amritsar and Tarn Taran said that various institutions should take inspiration from Guru Nanak Dev University and help the Punjab government to increase the forest cover in the State. He was here today at the launching of a campaign to implant 2500 different varieties of saplings at the University Campus. On the behalf of Prof. Jaspal Singh Sandhu Vice Chanellor, Dr. Hardeep Singh Dean Student Welfare and Dr. Jaswinder Singh Bilga, Consultant Horticulture welcomed Mr. Sahota and others.Mr. Sahota said The personal interest being taken by Prof. Jaspal Singh Sandhu in making the University green and clean is a matter of great appreciation. The other institutions should follow. General public should also start a campaign to plant saplings around them. He said that Punjab government has started a campaign to plant 400 saplings in every village on the occasion of 400th Prakash Purab of Sri Guru Teg Bahadur. He said that at present due to global warming 33% of the forest is needed whereas at present the situation in Punjab is worrisome and alarming. In both forest and non-forest areas 6.5 percent of the area is under saplings thus, in Punjab 26.5 percent more area need to be planted. In this direction Punjab Government has set a target of planting saplings in 15 percent of the area under the first drive.He said that the farmers were being encouraged to plant trees by taking them out of the paddy crop cycle so that their income would be increased as well as water would be saved alongwith the cleaniness of environment.
He said that this is the responsibility of all of us to keep the polluted environment of Punjab clean and create maximum awareness about it. Only a healthy environment can take Punjab in the path of progress.As we are moving away from nature on the name of development and facing various problems. He offered to provide innumerable saplings to Guru Nanak Dev University on this occasion and said that he could get many types of plants from the forest department as required by the University. Encouraging the people, he said that they can contact the Haryali App or the forest department for planting saplings around to help increase greenery.Dr. Hardeep Singh thanked the Vice Chancellor Prof. Sandhu and Mr. Sahota for this initiatives. He said that today in collaboration with the Punjab government a campaign has been launched to plant 2500 more saplings in three acres. He said that earlier a sacred forest of about 2000 plants had been planted at the University by Baba Sewa Singh and Sangat.Dr. Bilga said that State tree Tahli is being specially planted in these plants. Other includes Teak, Srinivasa, Mango, Jasmine, Neem, Sukhchain, Dharek, Pipal, Bohar, Tun, Chakramiya, Gulmohar, Satpati, Amaltas, Jakaranda and Chandni, , Keshia and Zetrofa etc.On this occasion, Dr. Adarsh Pal Wig, Dr. Satwinderjit Kaur, Dr. Saroj Arora, Dr. Jatinder Kaur, Security Officer, Col. Amarbir Singh Chahal, S.D.O. Hira Singh, Forest Range Officer Hardev Singh, Forest Block Officer, Nirmal Singh, Mandeep Kaur, Harmanjit Singh were present.