Chennai: Tamil Nadu education minister K Sengottaiyan on Thursday promised school students with additional marks in their subjects if they plant trees. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the minister promised 12 marks to students who would take part in the green initiative. The education minister stated that this rule would come in to effect in the upcoming academic year.

In late 2017, the minister said that the discussions regarding granting marks to students who plant and grow trees within their time spent studying in a government educational institution were underway. He also said that the intention is to have one crore students to plant five trees each to reach five crore trees in two years.

He had also said that the students who achieve this, would be given an additional 5% marks to their total score. Out of 15 marks meant for social activities, if planting trees were included, then the transformation would be seen in the country's environment, the minister stated.

Earlier in 2018, Sengottaiyan said that the students would be marked based on the effort they had put into growing trees, and remarked that the government is organising sapling plantation drives keeping in mind the changing climatic conditions.

The education minister not only offered a different system for granting marks to students but also pushed the date of implementation.

However, for now, there has not been any further explanation on how this will be monitored and where the saplings would be planted.