BALANGIR: In the last 10 years, a staggering 74 lakh trees have been planted in Balangir district, according to a reply by the Forest department to an RTI query.
If true, the number of trees planted by the department is five times the total population of the district, said Hemanta Panda, the RTI activist who had filed the application.
As per information provided by the Forest department, 74,46,708 trees have been planted in the district in the last decade. Simply put, Panda said, for every person in Balangir, there are five trees. “If the information is genuine, trees should be visible everywhere but nowhere in the district such a massive number of trees is visible on the ground,” he told a recent press conference.
