Bihar to increase forest coverage to 15 per cent: Nitish

The Bihar government is promoting large-scale plantation of trees to create more green cover to achieve the target of increasing forest area by 15 per cent by 2017, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said today.
"The government is committed to increase forest area coverage from 9 per cent at present to 15 per cent by 2017," Kumar told a function here.
The state required to plant 24 crore trees for increasing forest area to 15 per cent, a target which was part of a five year agricultural roadmap from 2012-17, he said, adding that Bihar was witnessing environmental imbalance because of the weather.

"People are in distress due to rainfall shortage in 30 out 38 districts which is an outcome of environmental imbalance," he said at the 'Hariyali Samagam' organised by Environment and Forest department here.
The chief minister said that his party JD(U) had in 2011 made it compulsory for new members to plant trees in their premises and over 10 lakh had been planted till now.
Agriculture minister Narendra Singh and Secretary Environment and Forest Deepak Kumar Singh also stressed on plantation of more trees in the state.