Greens see red as 600 trees face axe in Powai……..Urvashi Seth
Tree authority to survey IIT campus to assess if they have space to plant 1,200 trees in exchange as per BMC rules
Tree authority to survey IIT campus to assess if they have space to plant 1,200 trees in exchange as per BMC rules
It’s a chunk of green that faces the axe. And an attempt is being made to confirm that it can be replaced.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) tree authority will survey the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) campus at Powai after the institute proposed a plan to cut down almost 600 trees
to make way for a hostel on its premises.
to make way for a hostel on its premises.
Environment rules have it that for every tree hacked, one has to plant two. The tree authority now wants to confirm whether the institute will be in a position to plant 1,200 trees.
The BMC’s garden department has already given the tree authority the nod to go ahead with the survey. The tree authority contends that IIT-B does not have enough space to plant the required 1,200 trees and that this will impact the green cover.
The survey
“With the city left with hardly any green cover, the BMC’s garden department should not have passed the proposal to hack the 600 trees,” Tree Authority member U N Singh, who is also the general secretary of an association of nurseries in the city, told MiD DAY.
“We have requested the garden department to let us examine the place where the trees will be planted or else we will not let them hack the trees,” said Singh.
Singh added that the garden department should have first surveyed the place where the 1,200 trees would be planted. “We have written to the IIT for its permission,” he said.
Singh and his associates will soon visit the place. At a recent meeting with the municipal commissioner, the department has permitted the tree authority to go ahead with the survey.
Singh pointed out that the BMC recently had turned down a proposal put up by the MMRDA to uproot 392 trees in Bandra to beautify a garden at the Bandra-end of the sea link.
‘No problem’
Deputy Municipal Commissioner Chandrakant Rokde confirmed that the proposal to hack down the 600 trees on the IIT campus has been passed.
“We don’t find any problem as IIT is ready to plant 1,200 trees as replacement on its campus,” said Rokde.
The Other Side
“It’s been a longstanding tradition for us to plant trees on the campus. Every monsoon we plant at least 2,550 saplings besides trying to transplant trees instead of cutting them,” said Public Relations Officer of IIT-B Jaya Joshi. “If a tree has to be cut, it is replaced by at least 10 trees.”