Two morning walkers plant a sapling in Biju Patnaik park as others look on during the ongoing Van Mahotsav programme. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 5: The focus of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority’s Van Mahotsav programme this time is on plantation by morning walkers and visitors to the Biju Patnaik park. People irrespective of their age took part in the programme.

Around 200 saplings were planted on Saturday, the opening day of the event.

The plantation work is on and 500 new saplings would be planted in the park this season. The Van Mahotsav programme will continue till July 14 or bahuda yatra, the trinity’s return journey from the Gundicha Temple to the Jagannath Temple.

“We had taken a decision to include common people and those who frequent the park on day-to-day basis. Accordingly, the morning walkers, joggers and those attending the yoga classes inside the Biju Patnaik park were invited to plant saplings in the prescribed pits. Chief secretary Bijay Patnaik, forest and environment secretary Aurobinda Behera and finance secretary Jugalkishore Mohapatra, who all are frequent visitors to the park in the early morning hours, also planted a sapling each,” said chief horticulturist of the development authority Ashok N. Dhar.

All members of the Society for Public Education Environment, Culture and Rural Management (Spectrum), formed by the morning walkers of the park were also present. Spectrum had installed a weighing machine with the charts of body mass index (BMI) in the park to make people aware of their body weight and fitness.

Managing trustee of Spectrum Shyamsundar Agarwal said: “The plantation programme will also help people know the importance of planting trees on their premises and open spaces.”

Dhar also said there was a plan to install safe drinking water machines in six parks across the city. “Like the Spectrum initiative to install weighing machine, we might also install similar machines in some selected parks to make people aware of their weight, height and BMI,” he said.

The development authority has decided to plant 15,000 saplings in various parks across the city. “In fact, we mainly focus on avenue plantation. But seeing a rise in development activities across the city and tree-felling at frequent intervals, we have decided to go for plantations in the parks,” he said. A frequent visitor to the park, Nilamadhav Sahu, said inclusion of common visitors in the plantation programme would give a different meaning to people’s participation in the public place.