Prakash Javadekar started Van Mahotsav 2021 by planting Parijat plant

Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar kick started the week of Van Mahotsav 2021 with the plantation of Parijat sapling in New Delhi.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2021

It is a festival that encourages the citizens of India to plant more trees.

Forests and trees help in lowering the carbon footprint and maintain ecological balance. Van Mahotsav’s celebration in the first week of July also coincides with the onset of the monsoon.

A botanist called MS Randhawa had organized the first Indian national tree plantation week In 1947. In the same year, Khurshid Ahmad Khan, the then Commissioner of Delhi inaugurated the first event by planting Bauhinia saplings.

In 1950, the plantation drives were declared as a national activity by the then Minister of Food and Agriculture Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi. Later in the same year, Munshi moved the event to the first week of July and renamed it Van Mahotsav.