LEH: Ahead of the Youth 20 (Y20) pre-summit to be held in Ladakh next month, the union territory administration has started giving final touches to its preparations.
As a team of Union Ministry of Youth Affairs has landed in Leh, the top administrative layer has been tasked with finalising Ladakh’s flower, tree and song at the earliest.
Leh is slated to host the Youth 20 (Y20) pre-summit in the month of April under the aegis of G20. Youth 20 is the official youth engagement group of G20.
In this connection, a team of officials from the G20 Secretariat, Ministry of Youth Affairs, Government of Indiaarrived in Leh on Sunday and met with the top officials of the Ladakh administration as they discussed the final touches to preparation for G20 meeting in Leh.
Divisional Commissioner, Ladakh, Saugat Biswas, administrative secretaries of different departments, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Deputy Commissioner of Leh and a number of Directors attended the coordination meetings held throughout the day.
Sunday’s meeting came hours after Lieutenant Governor B D Mishra instructed Principal Secretary, Dr Pawan Kotwal, to identify the UT/State flower, tree and song at the earliest.
In December 2022, the Ladakh administration had proposed Bhoti ‘Shukpa’ and Bhoti ‘Tsersnon’ as the state tree and state flower, respectively, of the union territory of Ladakh and had placed them in the public domain for suggestions and comments from experts and the general public.
A committee constituted for the purpose, chaired by State tree and flower committee, Dr Padma Gurmet had said that experts suggested Juniperus polycarpos (Shukpa) as the state tree and Meconopsis aculeata (Tsersnon) as the state flower of Ladakh.
Shukpa is from the cupressaceae family and is commonly known as “Himalayan pencil cedar”, officials said. The plant is locally known as ‘Shukpa’ in Buddhist communities and ‘Chilgi’ among the Brokpa tribes of Ladakh.
The tree, which is confined to dry tracts of western and north-western Himalayas between 2,800 to 3,800 meters above sea level, is declining in its population due to low germination of seeds and over-exploitation, they said.
Similarly, Tsersnon belongs to the “Papaveraceae” family and is commonly known as “The Himalayan blue poppy”. Both the plant and flower are used as medicine in the Sow-Rigpa system, they said.
In Saturday’s meeting, LG Mishra had also instructed the concerned departmental secretaries and officials to do tiling work, cleaning of construction waste and nullahs, installing the cover on drainage grills and cleaning and repairing flower beds around Leh town well ahead of the scheduled G20 meeting.
 pre-summit to be held in Ladakh next month, the union territory administration has started giving final touches to its preparations.){kind=link}