Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Tuesday, 7 July 2026 amplified a call by Union Home Minister Amit Shah urging all Delhi residents to visit the Green Drive Portal, book a tree-plantation slot, and plant saplings across schools, colonies, temples, and housing societies to realise the vision of a greener national capital.

Context

Sharing Home Minister Shah's address, CM Gupta quoted him directly: 'ग्रीन ड्राइव पोर्टल पर जाकर एक पौधा मांगेंगे, एक पौधा बोएंगे' — 'Go to the Green Drive Portal, request a sapling, plant a sapling' — and added that the trees selected are of a mature species, so that, in Shah's words, 'your grandchildren will also sit in the shade of that very tree.' The appeal was made from a public platform and directed at every resident of the capital.

The post carries the hashtags #GreenDelhi and #EkPedMaaKeNaam, linking the Delhi drive to the national tree-plantation campaign 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' (One Tree in Mother's Name), which was launched in 2024 to encourage citizen-led afforestation across India.

Policy Backdrop

Delhi has long grappled with severe seasonal air pollution, making urban greening a recurring policy priority for successive administrations. The Green India Mission, a long-running national programme, laid the groundwork for community-based plantation initiatives by emphasising long-term ecological benefits and local participation.

The 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' campaign extended that ethos to a mass-mobilisation model, asking citizens to plant trees as a personal tribute. The Green Drive Portal operationalises this by allowing residents to book specific slots and locations, turning an aspirational goal into a scheduled, trackable civic act. The BJP-led government in Delhi has aligned local environmental messaging closely with this national framework.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries are Delhi's approximately 2 crore residents, who face some of the country's worst air-quality indices during winter months. Schools, residential colonies, temples, and housing societies are identified as priority plantation sites — spaces with available land and high community footfall that can maximise both ecological and social impact.

Local communities are cast as active participants rather than passive recipients, a model that urban ecologists argue improves long-term sapling survival rates because residents feel ownership over the green cover near their homes. The drive also carries an intergenerational message, with Shah's imagery of grandchildren enjoying shade underscoring the decades-long horizon of tree-growth benefits.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to actual booking volumes on the Green Drive Portal and the number of saplings planted before and during the upcoming monsoon season — traditionally the optimal window for tree plantation in northern India. Monsoon rains improve sapling survival rates significantly, making July and August 2026 a critical period for the drive's early metrics.

Sustained follow-through — including maintenance of planted saplings and transparent reporting of green-cover gains — will determine whether this campaign translates into measurable environmental improvement for Delhi, or remains primarily a mobilisation exercise.