This story is from July 20, 2020

Haritha Haram drive: Telangana Congress dares CM to conduct tree census

HYDERABAd: Raising doubts over the claims of Telangana government about crores of saplings planted as part of Haritha Haram drive, state Congress treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy on Monday dared chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to conduct a tree census in the state.
Haritha Haram drive: Telangana Congress dares CM to conduct tree census
Telangana Congress treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy.
HYDERABAd: Raising doubts over the claims of Telangana government about crores of saplings planted as part of Haritha Haram drive, state Congress treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy on Monday dared chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to conduct a tree census in the state.
Reddy alleged that Haritha Haram was a major scam in which massive amount of public money was siphoned off.
“The state government is claiming that 159 crore saplings have been planted in the state since 2015.
It should ratify its claim by conducting a tree census. If the government fails to prove its claim, it should tender an apology to the people of Telangana,” Gudur Narayana Reddy demanded.
Stating that an RTI query has revealed that Rs 3,630 crore was spent for planting of saplings as part of Haritha Haram programme between 2015 and 2020, the Congress leader alleged it as a scam stating Rs 6.91 crore were spent on purchasing green khandwas for the drive.
“The population of Telangana is 3.52 crore as per the 2011 census. Going by the government's claim that it has planted 159 crore saplings, there should be 45 saplings or trees per person in the State. “Let the state government conduct a tree census at least in 10 per cent of the total Mandals or 10 per cent of the total gram panchayats and come out with statistics on number of saplings and trees that have survived,” he said.
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