PM Khan launches ‘10 bn tree plantation drive’ in Nankana

NAKANA: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday launched the ’10 Billion Tree Plantation Drive’ in Balloki.

The prime minister planted a sapling at the Forest Reserve in Balloki to mark the ‘Plant for Pakistan’ campaign.

Earlier today on Twitter, he shared a promotion poster of the program and wrote, “We are launching our #Plant4Pakistan programme & reclaiming mafia encroached land, converting it into forests and wild life parks for our future generations to fight climate change and pollution.”

Under the program, which aims to counter climate change and pollution, the forestation of the land will take place, in addition to establishing wild life parks.

Read More: Govt to plant 150 mn trees in three months: PM’s advisor

Deputy Commissioner Nankana Raja Mansoor Ahmed told the state news agency that 10,000 saplings would be planted by 25,000 school children along with the prime minister to launch the tree plantation campaign.

He said the district administration had retrieved 2,500 acres of government land from illegal occupants.

Mansoor Ahmed said a forest reserve would be developed on 1,500 fifteen hundred acres of land while a wildlife sanctuary would be built on the remaining 1,000 acres of the retrieved land.

Prime Minister’s Advisor on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam on Friday said 2500 acre land had been retrieved from land mafia in the city. “For the first time in the history of Pakistan a land is reclaimed to grow it into a jungle by planting trees,” he said.

The jungle would eradicate the issue of smog-like weather in Lahore in the future, he said.

The Lahore High Court on January 31 sought details of the government policy on tree plantation across Punjab.