Daily Times

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry Saturday lashed out at the past rulers of Punjab for causing substantial damage to the Lahore city’s green cover which adversely affected the air quality.

“We see Lahore engulfed by fog in every winter due to the past rulers of Lahore who had cut trees for building a jungle of concrete there which badly affected the jungle cover of Lahore and its surroundings, Punjab and overall Pakistan,” he said while addressing the inaugural ceremony of Green Day Plantation in Jhelum.

He said prior to PM Imran Khan, there was no discussion on environment in the country due to lack of a leadership which could have emphasised forestation and eco-friendly activities in a way as by the prime minister with full intensity and devotion. Fawad said it seemed that those who built palatial palaces might have forgotten that there would be suffocation while living in those big concrete buildings. “For preventing suffocation, it was imperative to plant and grow trees,” he added.

The minister said the name of billion tree tsunami project became public knowledge for the first time in the history of Pakistan when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government first came into the power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “When PM Imran Khan took oath, the first project announced by him was of planting 10 billion trees in the country,” the minister added. He said the prime minister always stressed that only that person could be called as a genuine leader who thought of future generation instead of the next elections. “The entire emphasis laid by PM Imran Khan on environment was mainly about the future generation of Pakistan,” he said.