A first, civic body to identify ‘dangerous’ trees in census….Aakriti Vasudeva
Bid to curb incidents of trees falling, save lives
Bid to curb incidents of trees falling, save lives
Concerned by the loss of lives in incidents of trees falling, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will for the first time identify dangerous trees on private premises. The civic body will take up this process during the upcoming tree census, after a gap of five years in June.
“We are concerned by the loss of lives due to tree falling incidents and during the tree census this year, we will identify dangerous trees whether on private or public premises,” said Kamalshankar Yadav, superintendent of gardens.
Trees found to be leaning, dead or mature will be marked and if it is on public premises, it will be cut after seeking permission from the Tree Authority and if on private premises, those concerned will be informed.
The move comes after a woman and her six-month-old child were crushed to death after an old banyan tree fell on them at Nariman Point in July 2011.
Sources maintain that since the tree was on the premises of CR2 Mall and not on the road, it was not the responsibility of the civic body to maintain it. In fact, this is the first time that the tree census is undertaking an exercise of identifying dangerous trees, said Yadav. “In the last census, all we did was count the number of trees. This year, we will find out the age of the tree, if it is dead or dangerous and whether it is likely to come in the way of future road widening. We will also identify the species so that we have a record of the rare species of trees present in the city,” Yadav said.However, there is no specific pre-monsoon trimming of trees being undertaken by the BMC. “It is a regular practice and whenever any trees are found to be dangerous, they are trimmed,” he added.