Environment Minister Eshwar Khandre on Tuesday (August 12, 2025) urged institution bodies across various sectors to join hands with the government to increase Bengaluru’s green cover.

Inaugurating the first stakeholders conclave of the Karnataka Forest, Wildlife, and Climate Change Foundation, he said, “For a person to live comfortably, there should be seven trees per person, but in Bengaluru, there isn’t even one tree for every seven people. The city’s population is approaching 1.5 crore. To prevent the capital from becoming a gas chamber like New Delhi, institutional bodies must join hands to increase the city’s green cover.”

More green space

He added that officials have already been instructed to study ways to increase Bengaluru’s green cover.

“Lalbagh and Cubbon Park were created over a century ago, but in the last 150 years, no other large park has come up in Bengaluru. Now, at Madappanahalli near Yelahanka the government is developing a 153-acre biodiversity park at a cost of ₹250 crore. Institutional bodies must cooperate to make this a reality,” he added.

He also said that the government is committed to reclaim the forest land given to Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT).

“In the 1960’s, land was given to HMT for setting up an industry. Now that the industry has shut down. We will reclaim this land and set up another large park, and legal action is also being taken towards this,” he said.

Smart tree tag

Vijay Mohan Raj, principal secretary (Ecology and Environment) making a presentation on the Climate Change Mandate made a presentation on Smart Tree Tag, an initiative to connect greening efforts to the smartphone revolution.

“Every sapling planted will have a digital existence (tagging information like species, year of planting, owner of the plant). The aim is to involve corporates, philanthropists and passionate individuals in the greening mission,” he said.

He also spoke on the Bengaluru tree estimation, a citizen-science initiative for Bengaluru. “The objective of this initiative is to identify every individual tree in the city with a physical tag and attribute to an online presence. To calculate the worthiness of trees in terms of oxygen generation, identify the key species and neighbourhoods which are carbon-surplus, carbon neutral and carbon deficit,” he said.