Rs 100 crore proposal by Tamil Nadu to conserve biodiversity

TNBCGP is a joint-venture funded by Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) between 2011-2012 and 2018-2019 executed at a cost of Rs 686 crore. “We had submitted current year’s project outlay worth Rs 99.97 crore for approval. The project’s thrust will be on bio-diversity conservation, tree cover in private lands, and socio-economic development of communities that are bordering with forests and scheduled tribes”, the minister said. 

Reeling out statistics, Sreenivasan said as much as Rs 32.79 crore was spent towards teak cultivation and 28.67 lakh teak saplings were planted in of 14,335 hectares under the greening project. Forest department had planted 17 lakh tree saplings in 85,000 hectares of reserve forests in 22 districts under water conservation and tree cover improvement scheme in the past 3 years. Seemai karuvel cultivation project had been taken up in the bunds of water bodies and as many as 42.40 lakh saplings were planted under this initiative. The minister observed that courts were seized of the matter and further initiatives to save the species will be taken up considering the legal aspects. 

Sreenivasan maintained that every minister was acting according to the Constitutional mandate and discharging his/ her duties well within the law, while replying to a question on whether ministers can lie about anything. The minister was all over the news after his recent admission that the entire cabinet lied about former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s health, and about meeting her. 

“A probe is under way and everyone had been asked to provide details, if any, related to Jayalalithaa’s health and hospitalisation,” he retorted when asked about the Opposition’s demand for bringing the cabinet under the probe net.