BDA aims to enter Guinness World Records by planting 15 lakh saplings on Kempe Gowda Jayanti
The earlier record was held by Indore for planting 12.4 lakh saplings in 24 hours, BDA sources said. | Photo credit: amenic181
The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is aiming to create a Guinness World Record by planting 15 lakh saplings in 12 hours on June 27 on the occasion of Kempe Gowda Jayanti.
The earlier record was held by Indore for planting 12.4 lakh saplings in 24 hours, BDA sources said.
Miyawaki style
Speaking at an editors’ round table in the city on Friday (June 19), BDA chairman NA Haris said the scheme will create Miyawaki-style urban forests on 244 acres of BDA land in Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda Layout (NPKL), Dr. K. Shivaram Karanth Layout and Banashankari VI Stage. “The effort to plant 15,000 saplings is huge and we need 50,000 volunteers on that day to plant 30 saplings each to achieve the target,” he said, appealing for volunteers to join the BDA.
He further said that NGOs and organizations will work together to maintain areas of this forest for a period of three years. “The group needs to adopt at least one acre of forest bed. It will have nearly 7,500 to 8,000 saplings. You need a group of at least 300 people to maintain them,” said BDA Commissioner P. Manivannan, adding that this would ensure the survival of these saplings.
Original and exotic
BDA will plant 12.5 million trees, indigenous and exotic species, and 2.5 million shrubs, BDA officials said. Of this, 40% of the trees will be crown trees, 40% mid-canopy trees and the remaining 20% shrubs, according to the Miyawaki technique.
The 10 km Main Artery (MAR) at NPKL will be lined with various flowering trees of the Tabebuia family to form a serial flowering corridor. The MAR, which will be named after former Congress Chief Minister SM Krishna, will also be inaugurated on June 27.
BDA will be vertical in the new layouts
Mr Haris said the authority would opt for vertical development in the upcoming layouts. BDA plans to develop 11 layouts along the peripheral ring road where it now wants to break away from land development and instead go for vertical development.
Mr. Manivannan said that due to the high cost of land acquisition, the development of the layout is fast becoming unviable.
BDA to push for LPA to be for GBA area as well
Mr. Haris said the authority was pushing for it to also become a local planning authority (LPA) of the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) area, as it was earlier.
Under the Greater Bengaluru Administration Act 2024, the GBA has become the LPA for its area, while the BDA will be the LPA for the area outside the GBA but within the Bengaluru Metropolitan Area. This means that there will be two master plans for the region and both agencies have started working on the same. “Ideally there should be only one master plan for the region. Two master plans can cause confusion. I have appealed to the chief minister to make the BDA LPA for the entire BMA. It is now under discussion,” he said.
Published – 19 Jun 2026 23:27 IST