707m saplings planted in five years

Islamabad: The government has planted 707 million saplings in a period of five year from 2011 to 2016 in four provinces including Azad Jammu Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

A senior official of the Ministry of Climate Change told APP on Thursday that as many as 15.312 million saplings had been planted under the Green Pakistan Programme (GPP) till December 2017.

He said that around 14.787 million saplings of different species were available in various nurseries for plantation under the programme. He said the main objective of the GPP was to facilitate transition towards environmentally resilient Pakistan by mainstreaming notions of adaption and mitigation through ecologically targeted initiatives covering afforestation, biodiversity conservation and enabling policy environment.

He said the estimated cost of the GPP was Rs3.652 billion for a period of five years. Under the programme, he said, a total of100 million new indigenous plants would be planted in different ecological zones.

Out of total amount, Rs538.692 million were utilised by the provinces and federal territories during 2016-17 and Rs212.034 million had been released during first quarter of the current fiscal year under the Public Sector Development Programme, he added.