Rourkela: More than 300 students from different schools of the Steel City along with senior officers and employees of Rourkela Steel Plant as well as CISF personnel enthusiastically took part in the Mass Environmental Awareness and Tree Plantation Festival of SAIL, Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) organised at Ispat Sabuja Van, Jagda, near CWS Hospital on 04th July, 2025. 

Alok Verma, Director In-Charge, Rourkela Steel Plant with additional charge of DIC (ISP & DSP) graced the occasion as the Chief Guest and inaugurated the programme. Anup Mallick, Regional Officer, OSPCB, Govt. of Odisha; Tarun Misra, ED (HR); Anil Kumar, ED (MM); J K Acharya, CMO In-Charge (M&HS); Rajesh Dasgupta, CGM (F&A), Vijay Kumar, Senior Commandant, CISF and several Chief General Managers and other Senior Officers of the plant were present on the occasion. 

Addressing the students, the DIC said, “Every tree has a life and we must protect and care for them. Creating a green environment should be our goal, especially if children take responsibility for trees, they will grow very well.”

The programme commenced with Verma planting the first sapling. 800 plants of different varieties like Chhatiana, Karanj, Neem, Patuli, Jaman, Sunari, Sisoo, Bakul, Aonla, Jackfruit, Guava, Custard Apple were planted in the 1.25 acre land. Notably, the Horticulture department developed the saplings in-house and has plans to plant 5000 saplings throughout the year.

Earlier, the dignitaries were apprised about the massive plantation activities of the Horticulture Department through a presentation made by Purusottam Sahoo, DGM (Horticulture). The programme began with a rendition of a soulful song on environment conservation by the students of IEMS, Sector-20.    

At the outset, the students from Ispat English Medium School, Sector-20, Ispat Vidya Mandir, Sector-19, Delhi Public School, Sector-14, Gyanjyoti Public School Sector-19, Deepika English Medium School, Sector-5 and NCC Cadets from Deepika Ispat Sikshya Sadan, Sector-18 came to the venue in an attractive procession holding placards and raising slogans on environment awareness. Satyanarayan Mishra, AGM (Horticulture, Curator and Biologist) anchored the event. The programme was conducted under the guidance of Avijit Biswas, GM (Horticulture).

It is worth mentioning here that, so far RSP has planted around 52 lakh trees in and around Rourkela, thereby creating a girdle of green in this region. In the current year, the Steel Plant has plans to undertake massive plantation at different locations of the Steel Plant as well as the Steel Township to expand and intensify the canopy of green.