Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) has held a special meeting to implement the national tree-planting programme successfully in its area and to decide what must be done to tackle earthquake risk.

The meeting, held at Nagar Bhaban on Thursday (2 July), was chaired by DSCC administrator, freedom fighter Md Abdus Salam. In his remarks, he said: "We are determined to make the city green and environment-friendly."

The meeting pledged to turn tree planting into a social movement. To achieve this, it decided to form a high-level committee with DSCC's chief executive officer as convener. The new committee will draw up a specific, detailed master plan for tree planting in the corporation's 10 zones.

The meeting was told that about 18,000 trees have already been planted on road medians under DSCC's Zero Soil project to protect the environment. In addition, this year's national tree-planting programme was formally launched in the DSCC area on 16 June by planting 600 saplings at once.

The meeting also discussed reducing the city's disaster risk in earnest. It unanimously decided to build effective and strong coordination between Dhaka South City Corporation, RAJUK and the Fire Service and Civil Defence Directorate to tackle the risk of major natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Senior DSCC officials attended the meeting.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.