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Green body's green signals 'kill' tree cover.......Sukhada Tatke
Last Thursday, the Tree Authority (TA) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation gave the green signal to cut 2,000 trees for several infrastructure projects in the city, and transplantation of 2,000.
Set up to protect and preserve the city's green cover, the Authority-comprising politicians, bureaucrats and tree experts-has according to environmentalists become more of a mute spectator in its depletion, granting chopping orders without checking whether replanting or transplanting is being followed. Reasons given for the green slaughter range from road-widening to private projects.
Between March 2008 and April 2009, it permitted hacking of 9,541 trees to aid road-widening and construction projects. Around 7,378 more trees have been uprooted and transplanted elsewhere. Civic chief and TA chairman Jairaj Phatak said on an average, permissions to cut 6,000-10,000 trees are given annually but he could not provide actual statistics offhand. "I will have to verify details,'' he said. The TA cleared about 58 proposals on Thursday alone to cut trees, which include a proposal to cut 111 trees for revamp of the Mahatama Gandhi swimming Pool. But Sunita Godbole, member of the Pool and a Dadar resident, said members would object. "These trees are very tall and some have already been cut. How can the BMC do so without clearance for the project, since the pool is situated in a coastal regulation zone?'' she said. Interestingly, for every tree cut the government agency or private developer has to plant two trees. "By that calculation, the BMC should have planted 19,082 trees. But if at all they do so, they plant 6-18 inch saplings, which is not planting trees," said tree authority member Nilesh Baxi. He added MMRDA sought permission to chop off 500 trees and was to transplant another 500 more, to construct an elevated road from the Prince of Wales Museum to Wadala. "The TA had approved this in the first week of August 2008, and we visited the site in November. Now the monsoon is a month away and they have done nothing,'' he said. MMRDA spokesperson Dilip Khawatkar said, "When we cut trees we usually replant them at Aarey Milk Colony. We have done the same in this project.'' BMC claims it has planted 5,764 trees while MMRDA sources say they have planted 11,994 trees. The BMC's tree census published last year pegged trees in Mumbai at more than 19.17 lakh but experts say the figure includes 33,202 dead trees and 1.59 lakh subabhul or weeds, and the actual figure is lesser. Superintendent of gardens, V H Dande said, "Our job is to give permission to cut trees. We can't keep track of how many are replanted/transplanted properly.'' "Any builder who takes permission for cutting trees on a given plot just shows saplings and he is granted an Occupation Certificate. After that neither the BMC's building department nor the TA keeps any check whether they are in place,'' added Baxi. Horticulturist and TA member UN Singh said, "The oxygenation is massively cut down by planting saplings in place of trees,'' he said. Neera Punj, convener of Citispace, an NGO fighting for the city's open spaces and green cover said, "Development or planning should revolve around trees. Fewer trees mean more carbon dioxide." |
