Addressing a gathering at Veer Kuer Singh Park after he, along with deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, tied rakhi(s) to a tree on the occasion of Rakshabandhan to spread awareness about tree protection and environment, Nitish said after the creation of Jharkhand in November 2000, the green coverage in Bihar was reduced to just 9%. "After a series of discussions at various levels, we decided to increase the green coverage by planting saplings. At the time of launching the Hariyali Mission, the state government had set a target of planting 24 crore saplings in the state. Today, we have almost achieved the target," he said.

Modi, who is also the minister for environment and forest, said, "Now, we have set a new target of achieving 17% green coverage in the next 5 years."

The CM said the environment and forest department has played a pivotal role in achieving the target. Besides, the state government, farmers also took keen interest in tree plantation on the border of their plots of land. Lakhs of saplings were also planted under the MGNREG scheme across the state.

Nitish said in the initial years of the mission, there was shortage of saplings. But today sufficient number of saplings are available with different nurseries of the state government.

Health minister Mangal Pandey, PHED minister Vinod Narayan Jha, chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and environment and forest department's principal secretary Vivek Kumar Singh were also present on the occasion.

Earlier in the day, Nitish's three sisters visited him at his residence and tied rakhi to him.