Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi participated in a special programme at Kapileswar Government High School on 7 July 2026 to mark the closing celebration of the 77th Van Mahotsav Week, planting an Ashoka sapling on the school premises under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' (One Tree in Mother's Name) campaign.

Context

Posting in Odia, CM Majhi described the occasion as an opportunity to discuss the importance of Van Mahotsav and to take part in the national tree-plantation drive. He wrote that serving and protecting nature is 'ଆମ ସମସ୍ତଙ୍କର ଏକ ପବିତ୍ର କର୍ତ୍ତବ୍ୟ' — 'a sacred duty for all of us.' The Chief Minister also noted that the campaign has achieved widespread success across urban and rural areas of Odisha.

Van Mahotsav, India's annual tree-planting festival, was first observed in July 1950 when then Union Agriculture Minister K. M. Munshi launched it as a national movement to counter deforestation. Now in its 77th edition, the week-long observance continues to anchor state and central afforestation efforts each monsoon season.

Policy Backdrop

Prime Minister Modi announced the 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' campaign on World Environment Day 2024, calling on citizens across India to plant a tree in honour of their mothers. The initiative was designed to convert environmental protection and sapling plantation into a broad-based people's movement.

CM Majhi echoed this framing in his post, stating that 'the permanent solution to complex challenges like rising global temperatures and climate change is possible only through large-scale tree plantation.' Odisha, an eastern state with significant forest cover and a coastline vulnerable to cyclones and erratic rainfall, has particular ecological stakes in afforestation programmes. The state has been implementing such drives under BJP leadership since June 2024, when Majhi became the party's first Chief Minister of the state.

Stakeholders and Impact

School students and local communities are the primary participants in school-based plantation drives of this kind. Holding the event at Kapileswar Government High School positions young people as central actors in the campaign, reinforcing the government's messaging around civic responsibility and environmental stewardship.

Linking a state-level Van Mahotsav event to a centrally promoted campaign such as 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' also reflects a coordinated approach between the Odisha state government and the Union government on climate-related public outreach. Indian governments have run afforestation weeks since 1950 under frameworks including the National Action Plan on Climate Change, and state-level school events continue this long-standing pattern.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to whether the Odisha government issues directives extending the plantation drive through the remainder of the monsoon season — the period most conducive to sapling survival. State forestry officials are expected to compile reports on the scale of the 2026 Van Mahotsav Week activities across the state's districts. The survival rate of saplings planted during such drives has historically been a key metric for assessing the real-world impact of afforestation campaigns beyond their ceremonial dimension.