Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan participated in a tree plantation drive at Smart City Park, Bhopal, on Saturday, 20 June 2026, planting a sapling alongside family members and calling on citizens across India to join a daily tree-planting pledge under the hashtag #OnePlantADay.

Context

Chouhan shared the activity on X, writing in Hindi: 'प्रतिदिन पौधरोपण माँ समान प्रकृति की सेवा का महा संकल्प है' — 'Daily tree planting is a great resolve to serve nature, which is like a mother.' He noted that he planted the sapling at Smart City Park in Bhopal with brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces, urging citizens to contribute to building a 'better world' by planting trees.

The post also announced a citizen-participation mechanism: a missed call to 8929629475 enables anyone to become a 'Shiv Vriksh Mitra' — a tree-friend volunteer under the initiative. Chouhan closed with the appeal: 'आइए, मिलकर प्रकृति बचाने का संकल्प लें' — 'Come, let us together take a pledge to save nature.'

Policy Backdrop

Chouhan's association with large-scale plantation campaigns stretches back to his years as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, when the state ran the Mukhya Mantri Vrikshropan Abhiyan — a flagship drive that mobilised communities and local bodies to plant trees across the state. That campaign was widely cited as a model for public-participation-led afforestation at the state level.

At the national level, India's National Afforestation Programme and the Green India Mission — both running since the early 2000s — set the policy scaffolding for such drives, with a stated goal of expanding forest and tree cover to 33 percent of India's geographical area. Senior ministers participating visibly in plantation events is a deliberate communication strategy to reinforce these commitments.

Stakeholders and Impact

The 'Shiv Vriksh Mitra' missed-call mechanism is designed to lower the barrier for urban citizens and environmental volunteers to register intent and participate in organised plantation efforts. By attaching a specific phone number to the campaign, Chouhan's office creates a measurable outreach channel that can, in principle, feed into state or central scheme databases.

Environmental groups and urban local bodies in Madhya Pradesh are among the primary stakeholders who would operationalise such citizen sign-ups into ground-level plantation activity. The campaign's social-media framing under #OnePlantADay also targets younger, digitally active citizens who may not engage through conventional government channels.

What's Next

The immediate test for the 'Shiv Vriksh Mitra' initiative will be whether citizen registrations through the missed-call number translate into organised, on-ground plantation events with verifiable targets. Analysts tracking India's afforestation commitments will watch whether such citizen campaigns are formally integrated into central missions like the National Mission for Green India, which would give them institutional backing and monitoring frameworks.

With World Environment Day recently observed on 5 June each year serving as an annual focal point, June has become a politically visible month for environment-linked public outreach by senior leaders. Chouhan's continued personal participation in such drives — now from a Union Cabinet position rather than a state one — signals an intent to scale the model of community-led plantation beyond Madhya Pradesh.