Delhi govt to plant native tree species during Van Mahotsav 2026: Environment Minister Sirsa

Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa on Friday said the city’s ongoing mega plantation drive aims to tackle pollution by planting native tree species that improve air quality and require less water.

Addressing a plantation drive organised by the Delhi Police as part of the ‘Van Mahotsav 2026’, Sirsa claimed that these native plants have a survival rate of 97 to 99 per cent, adding that every sapling will be tagged and every plantation site geotagged to enable monitoring.

He said around 70 lakh trees will be planted across Delhi this year, including 15 lakh in the Delhi Ridge, under a 10-year greening master plan envisioned by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

“The Ridge plantation plan focuses on restoring the forest area with native species that provide cleaner air, help reduce pollution and require less water,” Sirsa said.

Calling pollution one of Delhi’s biggest challenges, he added that the government was trying to maximise green cover by taking up plantation drives wherever land was available.

“Besides conventional plantations, Miyawaki forests are also being developed across the city,” he said. Miyawaki forest is touted to be one of the most effective tree planting methods, creating forest cover quickly on degraded land that has been used for other purposes. The method was developed by Japanese botanist Dr Akira Miyawaki.

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Sirsa said the plantation campaign last year had seen participation from judges of the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, ambassadors from around 70 countries, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and officials from various government departments.

He appealed for greater public participation in the drive by involving resident welfare associations, temples, gurudwaras and other community institutions.

Highlighting the government’s waste management efforts, the minister said Delhi has around 202 acres of legacy garbage dumps, of which several acres have been reclaimed over the past one-and-a-half years. The reclaimed land has also been taken up for plantation, he added.

Sirsa said Delhi generates around 13,000 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste every day, while another 30,000 to 35,000 metric tonnes of legacy waste is processed daily, taking the total quantity of waste handled to nearly 50,000 metric tonnes every day.

He said the city was processing both fresh and legacy waste simultaneously and thanked the Delhi Police and the traffic police for ensuring smooth movement of waste transport vehicles, saying efficient traffic management meant such large-scale waste processing was carried out without causing inconvenience to the public.

The plantation drive was attended by Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha and other senior police officers as part of the Delhi Police’s mega plantation campaign.