Sri Lanka, March 21 -- From 2019, the current Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries, Mr. Mahinda Amaraweera, who served as the then Minister of Environment, took steps to include a national tree planting at auspicious time as a new auspicious ritual in the Sinhala and Tamil New Year auspicious sheet.

Initiated with the aim of increasing Sri Lanka's forest cover to 30 percent, this auspicious ritual was taken to be named Nakathata Pelayak - A breath to the nation. Accordingly, the program of planting saplings was started under the theme of "Nekathata Pelayak". After that, Minister Mahinda Amaraweera took steps to continue this ritual as a national program.

In the year 2024, the auspicious time of planting the national sapling...