Haritha Haram A Scam, Waste Of Public Money: Congress

Launching a scathing attack on the claims of the government pertaining to Haritha Haram plantations across the state, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Guduru Narayan Reddy on Monday sought to know if Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was ready to carry out a tree census in Telangana.

Reddy described the scheme as not 'Haritha Haram' but 'Haritha Haraam', and a major scam in which hundreds of crores of public money was being wasted.

The Congress leader said that it was revealed in an RTI query that Rs 3,630 crore had been spent in the name of planting saplings from 2015 to 2020. He termed this entire exercise a scam, and questioned the Rs 6.91 crore incurred for purchasing green khandwas for the Haritha Haram alone.

He said that the state government was claiming to have planted 159 crore trees across the Telangana during the past five years as part of Haritha Haram, and should ratify this by conducting a tree census. And if the government failed to prove its claim of the number of new trees planted, it should submit an apology to the people.

Reddy pointed out that the population of Telangana was nearly 3.52 crore as per the 2011 census, and 159 crore plants equalled 45 trees per person in the state.

"If this is true, the state government should justify its claim by conducting a tree census in at least 5 or 10 percent of the 590 mandals or 12,771 gram panchayats of the state, which will come to nearly 1,275 villages or 59 mandals of the state," he said.

The Congress leader said that the state government should form a task force to conduct the census, and show at least 10 plants for each person in the villages of its choice. He said that there could be all-party committees in each village to carry out this census.

Narayana Reddy appealed to the people of the state to come forward and question the government over this issue. He said that this could be the tip of the iceberg and that many such scams could come out of the several flagship programs of the TRS government.