Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Friday, June 5, 2026 launched a 90-day tree plantation drive titled Harit Goem, Ek Zaad Roi ('Green Goa, Plant One Tree') on the occasion of World Environment Day, beginning from Patradevi, Torsem, and Mopa in the state. The initiative aims to plant lakhs of trees along NH 66 from Patradevi to Polem, targeting a significant expansion of Goa's green cover.

Context

Sawant announced the drive through a post on X, describing it as drawing inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's national 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' ('One Tree in Mother's Name') campaign. The Goa-specific drive adapts the central campaign's spirit into a localised, time-bound effort focused on a major highway corridor. 'Beginning from Patradevi, Torsem and Mopa, this 90-day plantation drive aims to plant lakhs of trees along the NH 66 from Patradevi to Polem,' Sawant wrote, adding that the effort is aimed at 'strengthening Goa's green cover and environmental sustainability.'

Policy Backdrop

The national 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' campaign was launched by Prime Minister Modi on World Environment Day 2024 to encourage widespread tree plantation as a tribute to mothers and to bolster India's forest and green cover. Several BJP-governed states have since adapted the campaign into localised drives tied to specific infrastructure corridors, community events, or seasonal windows. The Goa drive follows this established pattern, channelling the national campaign's momentum into a state-level, corridor-specific afforestation push along NH 66, one of the key arterial routes running along the western coast of Goa from the Maharashtra border at Patradevi down to Polem near the Karnataka border.

India has committed internationally to expanding its tree and forest cover as part of its climate and carbon sequestration targets. State-level drives of this nature contribute incrementally to those commitments, particularly when anchored to high-visibility infrastructure corridors where sapling survival and monitoring are more tractable.

Stakeholders and Impact

Communities living along NH 66 — spanning the length of coastal Goa — stand to be the primary beneficiaries of the greening effort, with increased tree cover offering shade, air quality improvements, and local biodiversity benefits. The drive's three launch points — Patradevi, Torsem, and Mopa — span the northern reaches of the highway corridor, signalling a phased rollout moving southward toward Polem. State government departments, local panchayats, and citizen volunteers are typically the operational backbone of such plantation campaigns.

What's Next

The 90-day window places the drive's completion in the early monsoon and post-monsoon period, which is conventionally considered optimal for sapling survival in coastal Goa. The critical metric to watch will be actual plantation numbers against the 'lakhs of trees' target and, beyond that, sapling survival rates once the drive concludes. If the NH 66 corridor model demonstrates measurable success, it could serve as a replicable template for other national highway stretches in Goa and potentially be cited by other states undertaking similar campaigns ahead of future environment days.