District Collector M. Pradeep Kumar on Tuesday inaugurated a drive to disperse 20 lakh seed balls of various trees in the district with a view to increasing the forest cover.
The exercise was started inside the M.R. Palayam reserve forest area in which Mr. Pradeep Kumar along with Forest Department officials and schoolchildren dispersed seed balls of various species, including that of teak, nelli, malaivembu, and karumarudhu.
Coinciding with the monsoon season, the exercise was carried out at Thachamalai, Puthanatham, Thuraiyur and Periyamalai with 50,000 seed balls dispersed involving schoolchildren. The plan was to disperse the remaining seed balls in the identified degraded forest areas in the district before the end of the monsoon season, an official release said.