Aerial seeding taken up in Vizag, set to enhance city’s green cover

In an effort to improve the green cover, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has introduced aerial seeding on the hills of Vizag. The civic body undertook this project in association with the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) and Pragathi Bharath Foundation.

Around one lakh seed balls will be sprayed on the hills and other areas in and around Vizag, under the aerial seeding initiative. A variety of plant seeds was chosen to spruce up the green cover of Vizag. On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, YSRCP Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, Vijaysai Reddy, and the Vice-Admiral Atul Kumar Jain, FOC-in-C ENC flagged off the project in the presence of Member of Parliament from Visakhapatnam, MVV Satyanarayana, Visakhapatnam South MLA Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar, and GVMC Commissioner G Srijana. Taking to Twitter, Vijaysai Reddy congratulated the GVMC and the ENC for spearheading this unique initiative. The YSRCP MP wrote, “Flagged the aerial seeding of 1,00,000 seed balls to enhance greenery in the City of Destiny. I congratulate GVMC and Eastern Naval Command on this great initiative.”

Aerial seeding is a technique of plantation wherein seed balls – seeds covered with a mixture of clay, compost, char, and other components – are sprayed on the ground via aerial means, including planes, helicopters, or drones. Usually, this method is adopted in areas that are inaccessible, which have steep slopes with no forest routes, making it difficult for conventional plantation. The spraying of seed balls began on Friday morning as the choppers were deployed for the aerial seeding.