DMK MLA to give one lakh free saplings

The party MLA from Saidapet and former Chennai Mayor Ma Subramanian is the poster boy of DMK’s afforestation programme, which has been scheduled to kick off from July 1.   

A regular in marathons organised to raise awareness on cancer and rainwater harvesting in and around the state capital, and occasionally in neighbouring Puducherry, Subramanian has announced a new tree-planting drive in his constituency.   

Subramanian has offered to ‘provide’ free saplings of ‘strong’ trees to people of his constituency on their birthdays for a year starting this weekend. Touted to be a brainchild of the party working president M K Stalin, debutant legislator Subramanian has set one lakh as target, which, he intends to achieve in a year. 

He has appealed to people in his constituency, both young and old, to sign up for the afforestation programme either by calling him over phone or visiting his MLA office on Jones Road in Saidapet.  

Noting that Chennai only had 6.5% green cover, against the state average of 17.5%, which was way short of 33% national average, Subramanian claimed that the city’s lung space shrunt to 4.5% after cyclone Vardah uprooted trees aplenty. The MLA has offered to distribute five varieties of saplings – neem, common fig, naaval maram , pungai , and poovarasam.