A government resolution of August 18 for environmentally sustainable village mentions about tree plantation and tree conservation to be carried out from October in the state and stress is on planting one tree per individual. With Pune district rural areas having a population of nearly 33 lakh, the district has already paved way for the implementation of the scheme.

“Pune district is already ahead in the scheme. With 1,405 gram panchayats in the district, we have covered almost the entire district with tree plantation. The scheme was submitted and now it is part of the eco-village scheme,” said deputy chief executive officer (village panchayat) Pune, zilla parishad, Madhav Ghule.

The zilla parishad, which had nurseries in each of the villages, distributed the saplings and implemented the tree plantation drives. “We received a good response and that helped us to achieve the 71 lakh mark,” said Sharad Surve who is incharge of the project under the zilla parishad.

Now with the scheme becoming a part of eco village development, the government has lined up incentives for villages having become environmentally sensitive. According to the scheme, the village which is able to achieve the goal will get incentives in terms of funds to make the village more sustainable.

Presently, the zilla parishad has seen almost all talukas being covered under the tree plantation drive. In Indapur there has been maximum tree plantations with 8.89 lakh, while Velhe taluka has had 1.81 lakh tree plantations. “With the support of the gram sabha and and schools as well as awareness programmes, the scheme has successfully been carried out,” said Surve.

According to the incentives being given for an eco-village, there should be a ratio of one tree for one individual. The second criteria is that the village has to have achieved atleast 60 per cent open defecation free status while there should be atleast 60 per cent house tax recovery from the village to achieve the status of an eco-village.

Besides plantation, water management, land management, forest management, sanitation, garbage as well non-conventional energy resources and cleanlinesss are major criteria of an eco-village.

According to the criteria, the village with a population of 1,000 will get Rs 2 lakh each for three years, population of 1000-2000 will get Rs 3 lakh per year for three years, more than 2000 to 5000, the village will get 4 lakh for three years while for a village with a population above 5000 to 7000 will get 5 lakh each and above 7000 to 10,000 will get Rs 8 lakh each. Those villages which have a population of more than 10,000 will get Rs 10 lakh for three years.