Plastic tree guards to save saplings and a guard to safeguard the guards

With the locals stealing metal tree guards used to save the saplings planted under the ambitious Haritha Haram (Green Garland) programme, the Telangana Forest department has done away with the metal gaurds and shifted to plastic tree guards which are a tad difficult to uproot. However with the villagers devising an ingenious way of cutting these plastic reinforced guards and using them as pens for chickens, watchmen have been entrusted with the job of saving the tree guards.


The Forest department preferred plastic ones as they can’t be sold in scrap metal market. The plastic guards are cheaper and come at a rate of Rs 200 to Rs 300 per piece. However during the past one year maximum number of plastic tree guards waer stolen from Yerravelli, the adopted village of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his native district Siddipet. Warangal is another district in the state where the plastic guards were stolen in large numbers.

“We have undertaken avenue plantation on the either side of the 20 kilometer stretch from Ramayapet to National Highway 44. We took it as a challenge to save the plants from animals as the guards are stolen by unscrupulous villagers,” Additional Principle Chief Conservator of Forests RM Dobriyal. He said that now the department has hired few watchmen who live in nearby villages on a trial basis to guards the plastic guards that guard the saplings.

The Telangana government which is gearing for the third phase of its Haritha haram programme coinciding with the onset of Monsoon is aiming 90% success rate and the forest department is keen on saving the saplings during the initial months of plantation. Dobriyal hope that the watchmen system will help save the saplings from grazing animals.