ISLAMABAD - Deputy Speaker National Assembly Qasim Khan Suri on Saturday said that plantation was need of the hour and that the government was focusing on encouraging the trend of growing plants to secure future through a better environment. 

The area under forests in the country is in rapid decline and impacting the environment badly, he said while speaking on the occasion of a tree plantation event ‘Islamabad Tree Tsunami 2019 - Think Green’.

The Deputy Speaker said that the plantation project that had started in 2013 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa by Prime Minister Imran Khan had been appreciated across the world.

He said that Parliamentarians were planting saplings in their respective constituencies, adding that the people of his constituency were also taking part in the countrywide campaign to plant saplings.

Later he planted a sapling to open the campaign of turning Islamabad greener. 

Senator Seemi Ezdi, General Member Union Council 29 Islamabad, Afzal Khan and other members of the civil society were present on the occasion.