To bring school children closer to nature and inculcate in them a sense of urgency to protect the environment, the state forest department will now teach them how to plant saplings on their government-run campuses in East Singhbhum.

Under the central government's School Nursery Yojana, which was launched in August 2015, the Dhalbhum forest department along with East Singhbhum education department have decided to come together to help students to learn more about conservation and to increase green cover on school campuses across the district.

The Yojana is an initiative to bring students more closer to nature by involving them in planting and raising saplings at school nurseries.

The theme of the central programme is to plant a tree for sustainable future and to make the nation clean and green. As of now only two schools in East Singhbhum district - Jamshedpur High School and BDSL High School at Ghatshila - have been selected for the campaign.

Under this central scheme, 10,000 schools will be covered across the country in the next three years. The selected schools will receive a grant of Rs 25,000 in the first year and Rs 10,000 per year for the subsequent two years.

The students of Classes VI to IX will sow seeds and grow saplings in the school nursery as a part of their practical exercise for biology classes or as their extra-curricular activities. They will also carry out tree census in their school and the locality under this Yojana. One thousand schools will be covered under this scheme in the first year of its launch.

Each school nursery is expected to create around 1,000 saplings every year. The schools will also be encouraged to take up composting, rain water harvesting and water recycling to inculcate the practices among young minds.

"The main objective of the project is to create an everlasting bond between the students and plants. Some of the other objectives of the scheme includes - providing an opportunity to the students to learn about the nature, work with soil and positive emotions for the environment," said Mukesh Kumar Sinha, district education officer, East Singhbhum.

The schools will be encouraged to take up composting, rain water harvesting and water recycling to inculcate best practices in young minds under this scheme and to create an army of young, green crusaders.

Through the School Nursery Yojana, the ministry will support schools to provide all the essential facilities for raising saplings for the use of students and schools.

A school nursery will have a small space where students can prepare beds for raising saplings, planting a mixture of good earth, soil and manure, filling earthen pots and storage of seeds.