Giriraj Singh plants saplings at ICAR Patna under Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
A tree planted in a mother's name — that simple, powerful idea brought Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh to the ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region in Patna on Friday, 30 October 2026, where he participated in a tree plantation drive under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign.
Posting on X, the minister wrote: 'Tree plantation was carried out at ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign. Environmental conservation is the collective responsibility of all of us. Protection of nature and building a green future is an integral part of our development journey.'
What the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign stands for
Launched nationally in June 2024, the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam — 'One Tree in Mother's Name' — campaign was designed to give tree plantation a deeply personal emotional anchor. By tying the act of planting to maternal reverence, the initiative aimed to push green cover targets beyond policy mandates and into household sentiment. The campaign has since drawn participation from ministers, officials, and citizens across the country.
ICAR Eastern Region: where agriculture meets ecology
The ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region is a Patna-based institute under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, focused on agricultural research for eastern India — a belt where smallholder farming, monsoon dependence, and ecological fragility are all closely intertwined. Hosting a plantation drive here signals that the environment-agriculture link is being treated as more than ceremonial. Singh's presence at the institute as a senior BJP leader and Lok Sabha MP from Begusarai, Bihar also carries local resonance, reinforcing the campaign's message in one of India's most agriculturally significant states.
Indian ministers have regularly used research institution campuses for such drives, folding green-cover goals into the broader narrative of rural and agrarian development. Bihar, with its high population density and dependence on agriculture, has a direct stake in sustained green cover and soil health.
One tree, one name, one mother — and if the campaign's logic holds, that emotional arithmetic could eventually add up to a measurably greener eastern India.