new delhi the toi green drive was launched on tuesday by lieutenantgovernor najeeb jung at sanjay lake in east delhi commending toi for taking up this initiative jung sounded an alarm over the fast reducing green cover in the city students from 14 schools across ncr responded enthusiastically by following jungs lead and planting saplings at the site by the end of the day 2000 saplings had been planted the campaign which will cover select spots in the city in the coming days will culminate in at least one lakh saplings being planted in tilpat valley maidan garhi on august 30 2015 historically delhi has been one of the greenest cities in north india there was no city of this magnitude with so much water and greenery recalled jung when i was growing up we could drink water directly from the tap there was never a problem of getting shelter under a tree but over the past 40 years we have systematically reduced our green cover it is a pity we dont understand that every successive generation will suffer because of this jung however pointed out that the citys green cover was still substantial comparable to european cities and it was up to the children now to make sure that it was not only sustained but enhanced he requested schools to provide books on botany to spread awareness about the kind of trees that are there in the city and the ways in which they can be preserved he emphasized on the need to create interest in the natural growth of trees clean delhi is fine growth of delhi is fine but we need to enhance the tree cover of the city and that should be our motto he said striking a note of optimism jung told the students i have seen denudation of the tree cover in my life but you will see its recovery jung who is also the chairperson of delhi development authority spoke about the biodiversity parks that dda has developed it is one facility that is comparable with anything in the world these parks can be the motivators for the change we are talking about he said jung planted a maulsari also known as indian medlar sapling it is considered to be a holy tree also referred to as bakul and finds mention in sanskrit literature its flowers give out a rich fragrance addressing the gathering the ceo of bennett coleman co limited raj jain stressed on corporate social responsibility when large corporates the government and media companies come together we can do a lot for society this is a very intense drive to plant trees we are starting the first phase today he said vijay sethi chief information officer and csr head of hero motocorp spoke about how the company was taking up the social responsibility of making the environment cleaner we have this motto of a happy earth our factory in haridwar has the largest green roof in the world we