Saplings to be planted on highways, motorway to make communication infrastructure environment-friendly: Murad

ISLAMABAD, Sep 27 (APP):Vowing to contribute in the prime minister tree plantation campaign, Minister for Communication Murad Saeed Thursday said saplings would be planted along both sides of highways and motorway to make communication infrastructure environment-friendly.
Speaking at the ceremony organized by National Highways and Motorway Police (NH&MP) License Authority in connection with “Plant for Pakistan” campaign, he said his ministry would play a key role for accomplishment of prime minister’s tree plantation campaign “Plant for Pakistan”.
He expressed the commitment that no stone would be left unturned to achieve the target set by the prime minister for plantation of 10 billion trees across the country.
Murad Saeed said trees played an important role in making the environment more beautiful besides bringing down the temperature.
“Deforestation is aggravating the already deteriorated climatic condition in our country. The forest cover and deforestation is aggravating it further,” he said.
“The set standard for forest cover is 25 per cent for a country but unfortunately in Pakistan we stand at around three per cent”, he said adding that flooding was also a form of climatic change.
He said urban development was the main reason behind deforestation and there was a need to evolve an effective strategy to protect the existing trees.
He said being an institution, the NH&MP was a pride of the country. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) believed in empowerment of the institutions and would enable NH&MP as more empowered institution, he added.
He expressed his pleasure on seeing people of all age groups, especially the kids and students participating heatedly in tree plantation campaign of NH&MP.
He said by involving kids and students in such type of activities would help them sensitize about importance of tree plantation.
Speaking on the occasion, Inspector General (IG) NH&MP Amir Zulfiqar Khan said 50,000 saplings were planted during the last week while 200,000 more would be planted in next 70 days.
Besides a number of students from different schools, colleges and seminaries, the ceremony was attended by diplomats of different countries, officials of NH&MP and other dignitaries.
At the end, the minister officially kicked off the tree plantation campaign of NH&MP by planting a sapling along with a disabled kid.