The Chief Minister's Office of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, 12 July 2026, called on citizens across the state to participate in the 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' (One Tree in Mother's Name) campaign, framing tree plantation as a personal and civic duty tied to building a 'safe and prosperous future' for Uttar Pradesh.

Context

The post, shared from the official CMOfficeUP account, reads: 'Aaiye, aaj Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam lagakar Uttar Pradesh ke surakshit aur khushhal bhavishya ke nirman mein apna yogdan den.' — 'Come, let us contribute today by planting a tree in our mother's name towards building a safe and prosperous future for Uttar Pradesh.' The message is accompanied by the hashtags #एक_पेड़_माँ_के_नाम and #PragatiBhiPrakritiBhi, the latter translating to 'Progress as well as Nature' — a governing slogan that underscores the state's stated intent to pursue economic development alongside environmental conservation.

Policy Backdrop

The 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' campaign is a public mobilisation drive that asks citizens to dedicate a planted sapling to their mothers, using emotional and cultural resonance to drive participation in state-wide afforestation. Since 2017, the Yogi Adityanath-led government has run annual mass tree-plantation drives targeting hundreds of millions of saplings, with the stated goal of expanding Uttar Pradesh's green cover. The #PragatiBhiPrakritiBhi slogan has been a consistent feature of the state's environmental communications, signalling an official position that industrial and infrastructure growth need not come at the cost of ecological health. The campaign fits within a broader national pattern of state-led afforestation initiatives that combine measurable plantation targets with public awareness drives. The emotional framing — linking trees to mothers — is a deliberate policy choice to deepen citizen ownership of environmental outcomes beyond what top-down mandates alone can achieve.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary audience is the general citizenry of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, where expanding urban and peri-urban green cover carries direct implications for air quality, groundwater recharge, and urban heat mitigation. Environmental groups and civil society organisations active in the state have historically engaged with such drives, both as participants and as monitors of sapling survival rates — a metric that determines whether plantation numbers translate into lasting forest cover. The campaign also reaches the state's large diaspora and youth population through social media, broadening its mobilisation potential beyond physical plantation events.

What's Next

The immediate focus will be on citizen response to the 12 July 2026 call to action, particularly through organised plantation events at the district and block levels. Longer-term, the credibility of the campaign will rest on official audits of sapling survival rates and any corresponding allocations in the state budget for urban forestry or compensatory afforestation. As Uttar Pradesh continues to balance large infrastructure projects with its green-cover commitments, the #PragatiBhiPrakritiBhi framework will face scrutiny on whether policy outcomes match the rhetorical ambition of planting trees for both progress and nature.