Islamabad to be declared as horticulture city

Islamabad : The Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) in collaboration with Capital Development Authority (CDA) will jointly develop the capital city as horticulture city to make it more green and beautiful.

"We are planning to replace the trees that are harmful to environment and human health such as paper mulberry with fruit and flowering trees so that the capital city becomes more safe, beautiful and attractive," Chairman PARC Dr Muhammad Azeem told APP. He said the project of framing Islamabad as a horticulture city would cost around Rs10 billion.

He said PARC would provide its certified fruit trees to be planted across the city.

He said the fruit trees would not be planted along busy roads so that the traffic should not be disturbed when the people would try to pick the fruits. Dr Azeem informed that PARC would also take care of the trees after plantation and irrigation service would also be provided by the Council.

Besides this project, he said the government was also taking some other important initiatives in the city.

A big zoo will be established near Bani Gala area that will be of international standard and will also help boosting tourist numbers in the city. Further he said the PARC had also asked CDA not to fire the leaves that fell down in Autumn season and hand them over to the Council which would use them to prepare fertilizers for agriculture farming purposes.

"In this regard the PARC would soon sign an agreement with the CDA under which the Authority will accumulate all the leaves that had fallen down from the trees especially in autumn season and will be handed over to the PARC," he said.