Massive tree-planting scheme in India

Sept 2009

An Indian civil servant, SM Raju, has created an innovative project to provide ‘sustainable employment’ to millions of poor people, by planting trees.

Mr Raju’s campaign is located in the east Indian state of Bihar, the poorest state of India, and engages people in afforestation which, according to the BBC, ‘addresses two burning issues of the world: global warming and shrinking job opportunities. Evidence of Mr Raju’s success could clearly be seen on 30 August, when he organised 300,000 villagers from over 7,500 villages in northern Bihar to engage in a mass tree planting ceremony.’ On this day alone, almost a billion trees were planted.

Mr Raju is an agriculture graduate from Bangalore but the secret of the success of his ‘social forestry’ programme is that he linked it to the central government’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). This act was initiated in February 2006 as an employment generation scheme for poor people: the authorities are bound by law to provide a minimum of 100 days of employment a year to members of families living below the poverty line. But before Mr Raju’s project, Bihar had not been able to spend the allocated NREGA funds.

‘Every village council has now been given a target of planting 50,000 saplings – a group of four families has to plant 200 seedlings and they must protect them for three years till the plants grow more sturdy.’ Payment is staggered into three groups, 90%, 75–80% and less than 75% survival rate of the seedlings.

The scheme also includes planting fruit-trees inside the villages.