Although millions of saplings were planted by the forest department in the Rawalpindi division last year, almost quarter of them have died owing to lack of care.
In the last monsoon season, the forest department planted 0.5 saplings in the Rawalpindi range including Kotli Sattian, Kahuta, Murree and Gojar Khan, but, over 0.1 million of them have failed to grow because of lack of attention.
An official while requesting anonymity told media that the forest department had an insufficient budget of Rs160 million for the outgoing year. He said that the forest department was highly understaffed and resource-deficient and they needed an increased budget to grow and take care of saplings.
“The current budget ends up helping us grow less than 0.4 million plants every year,” the official said adding that they have a large number of trees in the stock but they fail to achieve the target due to lake of resources.
A source in the forest department said that they have no proper water system and the saplings were left at the mercy of rainwater, which often wreak havoc with tenderly plants.
The source said that the forest department has only four tractors and four waterbores for the whole region, which was too little to cater to the needs of millions of saplings sprawling over thousands of acres of land.
