Ludhiana: With the onset of the monsoon, Ludhiana municipal corporation has launched an ambitious plantation drive targeting 30,000 saplings across the city, while adopting a strategy aimed at improving survival rates by prioritising parks and central verges over roadside stretches.Having procured around 70,000 plants, including trees and shrubs, through a tender process, the civic body plans to plant 7,500 saplings in each of its four zones, besides another 7,500 in Focal Point. Every sapling will be geo-tagged to enable monitoring and improve accountability.Officials said councillors have been roped into the exercise this year to ensure greater transparency and avoid disputes over plantation sites. The drive will initially focus on public parks and vacant spaces along the city’s 778km network of central verges, with roadside plantation being taken up selectively due to poor survival rates and frequent objections from residents.The move comes as the MC simultaneously undertakes a citywide tree census, with a private agency already identifying over two lakh trees. Civic officials admit that while saplings planted in parks record significantly better survival, those planted along roadsides survive at a rate of only about 40-45%.Residents have welcomed the plantation campaign but have called for greater public disclosure of plantation outcomes. They have urged the civic body to place annual data on saplings planted and surviving in the public domain, arguing that transparency is key to assessing the effectiveness of greening efforts.
