Ganta participated in the inaugural of the 66th Vanamahotsavam festival
HRD minister, Ganta Srinivasa Rao moves on a battery operated vehicle inside the Kambalakonda Eco-tourism Park during a plantation drive as part of Vanamahotsav programme in Visakhapatnam on Friday. (Photo: DC)
Visakhapatnam: Bengaluru city in Karnataka is nicknamed the Garden City and it is time to develop city forest in and around Vizag forest reserves and Vizag city nicknamed as “City of Gardens,” said HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao.
He participated in the inaugural of the 66th Vanamahotsavam festival and laid foundation stone for Maha Visakha Nagara Vanam organised by the forest department at Kam-balakonda here on Friday.
Following the suggestion from district collector N. Yuvraj, the minister asked the officials to gift saplings rather than a bouquet of flowers in all the official programmes in the district and he also appealed to the students of various schools who took part in the Vanamahotsavam to follow the trend during the birthday celebrations.
Speaking on the occasion, additional principal chief conservator of forests N. Parteep Kumar said that students of various schools actively took part in the Vanamahotsavam festival and planted around 2,000 saplings at Kambalakonda. Vizag city is blessed with reserve forest Kambala-konda wildlife sanctuary spread over 7,146 hectares and no other city in India has that much of forest.
As part of the formation of city forests, part of Kambalakonda was identified for development of Maha Visakha Nagara Vanam covering an extent of 160.19 hectares.
The components of Maha Visakha Nagara Vanam are formation of walking path, children’s park, watch towers, rest places, trek path, butterfly park, theme park, environmental education centre, night safari, planting of native and ornamental forest species and few others, he added.
Collector N. Yuvraj, vice-chairman of VUDA G. Baburao Naidu, DIG of police (Visakha Range) A. Ravichandra and joint collector J. Nivas were among those who took part in the Vanamahotsavam festival in the city
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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