BHUBANESWAR: Urging people to work for building a greener and sustainable environment, ministers on Saturday appealed all to gift plants instead of bouquets during the New Year.
Joining an event of Bakul Foundation, Law minister Prithiviraj Harichandan, Forest & Environment minister Ganesh Ram Singhkhuntia and Sports minister Suryabanshi Suraj urged everyone to adopt this noble practice to make it a trend.
Harichandan appreciated the campaign to gift plants instead of bouquets and thanked the Bakul Foundation and its partners for showing them the way to include Climate Action in the BJP election manifesto. He acknowledged that many of the actions included in the manifesto by him as part of the drafting committee had been proposed by the team.
He said that steps are being taken by his department to adopt innovations to become environment-friendly in implementing projects.
Singhkhuntia said the innovative campaign should become a cultural revolution to address the environmental crisis. “If we want Odisha to return to its former state of being an ecological paradise by 2036, planting needs to be made a movement involving people,” he said.
Suraj also urged people to gift plants and protect the greenery in their surroundings to make earth a better place to live in.
Bakul founder Sujit Mahapatra said their foundation has taken up the ‘My tree campaign’ for the last 15 years to establish a connection between individuals and trees. Around one lakh bouquets are being gifted on the New Year day, he said.
