Programme to plant 5,000 palmyra palm seeds in Cumilla to reduce lightning risk
Photo: Collected
Voluntary organisation ‘Lal Sabuj Unnayan Sangha’ has taken an initiative to plant 5,000 palmyra palm seeds in different upazilas of the district with the aim of reducing the risk of lightning strikes and protecting the environment.
As part of the programme, an awareness-raising discussion on lightning and a distribution of palm seeds were held with students of Daulatpur High School in Lalmai upazila today, Tuesday.
Palm seeds were handed over to 300 students at the time. The students will plant these seeds in their respective areas.
Later, the organisation’s founder and central president Kawsar Alam Sohel inaugurated the programme by planting palm seeds on both sides of the West Noagaon, Daulatpur and East Noagaon regional road. More than fifty volunteers of the organisation took part in it.
Present were the school’s headteacher Muha Tofazzal Hossain Majumder and assistant headteacher Md Khaled Saifullah, the organisation’s assistant organising secretary Mehedi Hasan Maruf, Cumilla city unit organising secretary Mahfuzul Islam Rifat, finance secretary Akib Hasan, publicity secretary Salman Sajil, and members Rakib, Yasin, Shamim, Antu, Ifti, Saiful, Ashik, Labib, Rayhan, Rifat and Mehedi along with other volunteers.
The organisers said 1,000 palm seeds were collected on the first day of the programme and distributed among students and planted beside different roads. Throughout the current month, 5,000 palm seeds will be planted in phases beside regional roads in different upazilas of Cumilla.
The organisation’s founder and central president Kawsar Alam Sohel told BSS that their organisation ‘Lal Sabuj Unnayan Sangha’ has been planting palm seeds since 2011 to reduce the risk of lightning strikes and protect the environment. At least 70,000 palm seeds have been planted across the country in the past 15 years. In that continuity, an initiative has been taken this time too to plant 5,000 palm seeds in different areas including Cumilla.
He said a large share of the people who lose their lives to lightning are from marginal and poor communities. So enough concern over these deaths is often not seen at the social and institutional levels. Only when many people die together does the matter get importance in the media and the government agencies concerned stir into action.
