950805

ADBP lays down

'plant 3 trees'

condition for loans

ISLAMABAD: To give a boost to afforestation programme of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Council (PEPC) and also to create general awareness in rural population to grow more and more trees, the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP) has laid down a "plant 3 trees" condition for grant of fresh loans.

The ADBP which has been assigned block afforestation on 20,000 areas of forest land (9000 acres in Punjab, 5000 areas in Sindh, 3500 acres in NWFP and 2,500 acres in Balochistan) has made it binding on intending borrowers the condition for grant of loan to plant at least 3 trees on borders of their fields. The bank would provide credit assistance for murseries and trees plantation.

Avenue of cities of plantation of 20,000 acres of land assigned to ADBP include Islamabad (CT area), Faisalabad (Punjab), Mirpurkhas and Khairpur (Sindh), Peshawar (NWFP) and Pishin (Balochistan).

The bank chief, Badruddin Zahidi, is supervising tree plantation drive of the bank himself and has created a separate fullfledged department for environmental protection in the bank.