Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan participated in a tree-plantation drive alongside environmentalists in New Delhi on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, continuing his stated daily pledge to plant at least one sapling. The minister used the occasion to call on citizens to contribute to making the earth 'clean, beautiful, and prosperous' and promoted a missed-call initiative under the banner 'Shiv Vriksh Mitra'.

Context

Posting on X under the hashtag #OnePlantADay, Chouhan wrote: 'Pratideen paudharopan ke sankalp ke kram mein aaj Nai Dilli mein paryavaran premiyon ke saath paudha ropa' ('Continuing my daily pledge of tree-planting, today I planted a sapling with environmentalists in New Delhi'). He urged followers to dial 8929629475 via missed call to register as a 'Shiv Vriksh Mitra' — a tree-friend volunteer — and join the broader afforestation effort.

The post included two images from the event, showing the minister engaged in the plantation activity. The appeal closed with a collective call: 'Aaiye, milkar prakriti bachane ka sankalp lein' ('Come, let us together take a pledge to save nature').

Policy Backdrop

India's tradition of organised afforestation dates to 1950, when K. M. Munshi launched Van Mahotsav, the country's annual tree-planting festival, to build a culture of forest conservation. Decades later, the Green India Mission — one of eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change — was approved in 2014 with the goal of expanding forest and tree cover across the country.

India has also made afforestation commitments under successive UNFCCC climate conferences, pledging to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through forest and tree cover by 2030. Individual ministerial drives, while symbolic, are framed within this larger national target.

Stakeholders and Impact

Citizen volunteers and environmental groups are the primary audience for the missed-call mobilisation. Such drives typically aim to convert passive public interest in environmental causes into trackable, ground-level participation — registering volunteers who can be activated for local plantation events during the monsoon season, when survival rates for saplings are highest.

For Chouhan, who built a significant public identity around grassroots outreach during his four terms as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, the daily tree-planting pledge extends a well-established personal-branding strategy into his current national role. The initiative also aligns the Agriculture and Rural Development portfolio with environmental stewardship, broadening its visible mandate beyond farm-policy alone.

What's Next

The coming monsoon months — July through September — are the peak season for government and civil-society afforestation campaigns across India. Parliamentary committees tracking the Green India Mission and national forest-cover targets are likely to scrutinise funding and progress data in the next budget cycle. Whether the 'Shiv Vriksh Mitra' volunteer network translates into measurable sapling counts will determine the initiative's policy credibility beyond its current social-media momentum.