200,000 trees planted along Ring Road

LAHORE : The Lahore Ring Road Authority (LRRA), following the Punjab government's initiative of clean and green environment, has completed plantation of more than 200,000 trees along the ring road's 62.5-kilometre area besides growing 250,000 saplings in its nurseries.

For the purpose, the LRRA joined hands with different government agencies like Punjab Forest Department, Punjab Horticulture Authority (PHA) and the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) besides involving the corporate sector to support the plantation drive with an aim to save the future generations. LRRA Director Operations Ameer Hassan told APP that the executive board, in its meeting on May 21, 2019, had devised a plan to plant one million trees in five years. It also invited the corporate sector to fulfil its social responsibility by joining hands with the LRRA for the noble cause of clean environment.

Under the initiative, a number of entrepreneurs, including Carrefour, Akhuwat and WWF, signed memoranda of understanding to develop nurseries on the LRRA properties and plant trees. He said that till now 75,000 new trees on different parts of the ring road had been planted this year, in addition to 134,000 old grown-up trees of different kinds already planted.

Ameer Hassan added that on the directions of the LRRA chairperson and Lahore Commissioner Capt (retrd) M Usman, 250,000 saplings had been grown and made available in the Authority's nurseries. He said these saplings would be planted at different locations besides distributing those free-of-cost to the people residing in the housing societies along the ring road.

He said that the chairperson had ordered for achieving the plantation target of 250,000 saplings during the upcoming monsoon season.

He added that the LRRA, with the cooperation of other government agencies, was also maintaining and looking after the planted trees and nurseries, while sufficient funds were being spent for the purposes.

He said that the LRRA was fully committed to contributing to the clean and green initiative of the Punjab government for the sake of combating challenges of global warming, air pollution, urbanisation and industrialisation.