The Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has set a target of 40 per cent green coverage within a year under its jurisdiction. And chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy claimed that no state in the country except for Andhra Pradesh is taking up such a massive plantation drive. The chief minister was told by the authorities that the international standard of greenery is 33 per cent and Hyderabad has come close to it.

It was 23 per cent till last year and the green coverage has now reached 30 per cent due to last year’s drive of one-day-two-lakh plants and continuous process of plantation by Huda. Rajasekhara Reddy had come to participate in the one-day-two-lakh plantation programme taken up in the city and in Ranga Reddy and Medak districts at the Ordnance Factory grounds in Medak on Thursday.

HUDA authorities claimed that survival rate of the plants is 94 per cent. All the plants are rain-fed and the method adapted is rain water harvesting technology where the whole area is ploughed deep in criss-cross direction with a M B Plough after clearing the unwanted scrub growth. Only healthy and well graded seedlings of the height of not less than 1 metre are used as planting stocks. The height of the plants become double within a year.

The species include neem, usri, bamboo, amla, vippa, peepal, rita, sissoo, taani, tamarind, kanuga, red sanders, jamun and peltophorum.

Addressing the ceremony the chief minister said that no individual organisation in the world could compete with Huda when it comes to plantation. “This is the highest ever plantation and Hyderabad will soon be the greenest city in India,” he said. Rajasekhara Reddy emphasised on involving children in the green drive and urged the people to plants trees in their homes.