The Maharashtra state government will use the Vanyukta Shivaar app to ensure survival of trees
After completing its drive to plant almost three crore trees in Maharashtra, the state government will harness satellite imaging to track the survival of these saplings.
Conceived by Finance and Forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, the plan aims at planting 50 crore trees in the state in three years to increase its forest cover to 33 per cent from 20.01 per cent. On July 1, around 2.81 crore saplings were planted at sites across Maharashtra.
Forest department officials admitted that one of the problems it was facing was the survival rate of these saplings, which was especially low in areas with scanty rainfall such as Marathwada.
The department is also deploying a mobile app that can be used by the field staff to click photographs of plantings done on July 1. These images will be uploaded on a GIS portal where the sites have been geo-tagged. While strengthening monitoring and formulating responses to increase the survival rates of these plants, it will also create a central repository for further plantation projects.
“The app has been finalised by the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre (MRSAC),” PP Srivastava, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (APCCF- Information Technology and Policy), told DNA, adding it will enable the independent assessment of the status of all sites.
The Vanyukta Shivaar app will be used by guards, foresters, range forest officers, assistant conservator of forests and deputy conservator of forests on their smart phones.
“This will ensure sustained monitoring of the survival of these plantations,” Srivastava said, adding that technology will further enable them to understand the rationale for the survival rate and thus help improve it.
These officials will visit sites, photograph saplings, and enter details like names of species and girth of plants and trees along with location details. The data will be updated on the website which will be hosted on the MRSAC server.
The sites where the forest department has set up plantations have already been geo-tagged. Of the 2.81 crore saplings planted, the department accounts for the largest chunk of 2.21 crore, which this monitoring will encompass.
Forest is the second largest land-use after agriculture in Maharashtra. According to India State of Forest Report, 2015, (ISFR) published by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), India’s recorded forest areas cover 23.26 per cent of the 32,87,263 sq km geographical area.
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