KARACHI: President Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Shariq Vohra and Director General Parks & Horticulture, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Taha Saleem have pledged to work closely for identifying locations and initiating tree plantation campaigns in different areas of the city, particularly the downtown and old city areas of Karachi where the environment was extremely polluted mainly due to absence of trees.
Exchanging views with Director General Parks & Horticulture KMC Taha Saleem during his visit to KCCI, President KCCI Shariq Vohra suggested to ink a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which roads and corridors must also be precisely mentioned where the tree plantation campaigns need to be carried out. “Being the premier and largest chamber, it is undoubtedly KCCI’s responsibility and we will certainly play our due role under the Corporate Social Responsibility Program”, he added.
Senior Vice President KCCI Saqib Goodluck and KCCI Managing Committee Members along with representatives from Dawat-e-Islami, who have been supporting KMC’s tree plantation campaigns, also attended the meeting.
President KCCI pointed out that the old city area was the most neglected locality where tree plantation campaigns have not been carried out since long. “This is a very important area where trading activities of up to billions of rupees take place every day and is frequently visited by millions of people on a daily basis hence, the polluted environment has to be cleansed by planting maximum number of trees.”
DG Parks & Horticulture KMC Taha Saleem stated that despite limited financial resources, KMC was trying its best to plant maximum number of trees in the city. “A total of 40 big parks are currently being managed by KMC and 800 gardeners are also employed for these parks who can also be given the responsibility to plant maximum trees on the available small patches at the commercial areas but the business community must also act responsibly by vigilantly monitoring and taking care of such plantations.”
In order to improve the environment, all the citizens including the members of the business and industrial community will have to come forward to take ownership of the city otherwise, all the efforts being made to protect the environment would not yield any results and the situation would continue to worsen, he opined.
