In a novel green initiative of its kind, the Environment Ministry is set to link 1,000 schools across the country under the “School Nursery Yojana”. The programme seeks to bring students closer to nature and environment protection.
It will involve school children in raising of saplings in nurseries created in schools as part of practical exercise for Biology classes or extra-curricular activities. The programme was launched by Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday.
A school nursery will have a small space of a minimum of 100 sq meter for preparing beds for raising saplings and for concerning activities, including soil preparations, planting mixture of soil and manure, filling earthen pots and storage of seeds.
Each School Nursery is expected to plant and nurture 1,000 saplings every year. The schools will also be encouraged to take up composting, rain water harvesting and water recycling to inculcate best practices in young minds under this scheme.
Urging every student to plant a tree each, Javadekar said every school must earmark space to prepare a small nursery where the saplings could be planted. The students will also carry out tree census in their school and the locality under this Yojana.
In the next three years, ten thousands schools will be covered across the country. The selected schools will be eligible for a grant of `25,000 in the first year and `10,000 per year for the subsequent two years.
Addressing the students at the launching of the programme, Javadekar said that there can be no better combination than that of students and trees.
“The School Nursery Yojana will enable schools to distribute saplings to students to plant in their homes and surrounding areas and create an army of young ‘green warriors’. Through the Yojana, the Ministry will support schools to provide all the essential facilities for raising of saplings for use of students and schools”, said the Minister.