Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
300 people. On June 14, 2009, 300 soldiers of the 21 Jat regiment of Indian Army, with the
support of district administration and the Forest department, planted 447,874 saplings
in Sreegram reserve forest in Dhubri, Assam, thereby going beyond the record created by
Mexico’s National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR). “Anything which has to happen on
a large scale, has to be a movement, not a project. My mother has never seen Mahatma
Gandhi. But, when he died, she cried. A movement touches everybody,” added Ethirajulu.
EXPANDING ENDEAVORS
“It (Greenhands) is definitely carried out on a very large scale, which no other project has
done at least I’m unaware of. However, the project needs revamping… Too may people
are doing it, lacks innovativeness. (There is a) Need for better outreach mechanisms,”
said Mangala Tewari (Mangala), Area Convenor & Associate Fellow, TERI (The Energy &
Resources Institute), New Delhi. Responses to Greenhands’ geographical expansion had
been mixed. On March 22, 2008 Greenhands was launched in Hyderabad with the sowing
of 6000 seeds at Nanakramguda. “Unfortunately the project never took off in New Delhi…
if something materializes I will be the first one to take the lead in New Delhi,” mentioned
Mangala. “From where would we get the saplings? Which is best institution to target? And
I’m still searching for my answers!!,” added Mangala.
People at Greenhands were clear about the ill effects of the prevalent energy intensive
agricultural model and environmental degradation. “If we have to do something, we have
to do it now. Sadhguru suggested that if we have to do something, it has to be done within
6-8 years time so that by the next 15 years we would have about 30 percent green cover. We
are sure that this project cannot be implemented if we wait beyond that time frame. If we
become a desert land like Saudi Arabia, then our cost for nurturing saplings, planting them
and monitoring them will spiral up, and we will not be in a position to implement this
project,” said Ethirajulu. The organization had started the process of bringing together
NGOs with similar objectives under a same platform and helped them in capacity building
and creating linkages.
Annexures
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