Provincial Agriculture Offices extend their support for “Nekathata Pelayak Programme”

All Provincial Ministries of Agriculture and Departments and all regional offices under the Ministry of Agriculture have decided to extend their support for the auspicious day of planting saplings for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year festival (Nekathata Pelayak programme) which is scheduled to be held at 6.38 a.m. on April 20.

Mr.Mahinda Amaraweera, the Minister of Agriculture symbolically distributed fruit plants yesterday (11) evening at the Ministry of Agriculture to mark the occasion.

The Minister distributed these saplings to all provincial secretaries and provincial directors of Agriculture and requested them to plant a sapling at any convenient time on that day without confining to the auspicious time and extend the support for this national move.

The Minister also requested heads of all institutions to plant a fruit tree at all government and private office premises before commencing their duties on that day.

The theme for this year’s tree planting programme is “Let’s plant a tree that bears fruits”. The Minister emphasized that the auspicious celebration of the planting of saplings this year should be done by following the agricultural work schedule- we are growing the food crops we need, which has been launched by the Ministry of Agriculture with the aim of quenching the hunger of the people of the country.