LAHORE: As many as 12 provincial departments and all divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners have been expressly asked to follow the federal government’s instructions of observing Plant for Pakistan Day on Sept 2 without explaining how, and providing funds for the purpose.

Official sources informed Dawn on Wednesday that express letters had been sent to the secretaries of the forest, agriculture, primary and secondary healthcare, specialised healthcare, higher education, local government, home, communication and works, industries, commerce and investment, school education, labour and human resource and housing departments, and all divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners to plant trees on Sept 2 as has been desired by the federal government’s ministry of climate.

A copy of the instructions from the federal government too had been attached. The verbal direction was to plant maximum number of trees in big cities, schools, colleges and universities.

But as many questions remained to be answered, the departments and the field officers were confused on how to follow the instructions.

No mention of funds, types of plants; admin told to observe Plant for Pakistan Day on Sept 2

For example, there was no suggestion as to which types of plants were required to be planted in different areas of the province which were distinctively different from each other. There was no mention whether the government intended to plant fruit trees, ornamental or others, or whether they should be fast growing or slow growing plants.

There was also no mention of checking whether weather conditions were favourable for the tree plantation or not (this should have been checked in advance in view of less rainfall in the country this monsoon season to ensure survival of the plants), and which specific area required more trees and which did not.

The most important question left unanswered was who would fund the campaign and from where such huge number of plants would be obtained.

Officials said the campaign would be funded by the federal government without explaining as to why these funds had not been released so far.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2018