Changing lifestyle is root of the problem, says BMC
MUMBAI: So far, the rampant, haphazard digging across the city was blamed for tree being uprooted. However now, following a spate of incidents of branches falling injuring people and damaging property, civic officials have zeroed in on another cause: a change in lifestyle that is causing diseases in trees.
According to officials of the civic garden department, three new kinds of diseases have been detected in trees over the past few months. “Packaged food seems to have become the bane of existence for the green cover in the concrete jungle. With almost every other one throwing away empty tetra-packs on the road side, the trees are catching `new ailments’ caused by white mili bugs, stem bores and white ants that breed in those packets. Earlier, there wasn’t too many packets and so these diseases had not spread so much,” said deputy municipal commissioner Chandrakant Rokade.
According to Rokade, trees plagued with those diseases though look lush and green, they actually start rotting from inside. “We are going to review all the trees in the city to examine how many of them are rotting and accordingly, take remedial steps,” said Rokade.
To avert further such accidents, the civic body has also decided to carry out round-the-year pruning of trees that have branches dangling dangerous. According to the official data, of the 25 lakh trees in the city, about 4 lakh to 5 lakh are on the roads and can be a cause of concern. “Currently, we prune the trees from April to September but we have found out that this is not enough, so we will do it all year around. We will also add to our manpower. Until now, we have finished pruning about 70% of the slotted trees,” Rokade added.
Activists said there was already a post of junior horticulture assistant in every ward whose job is to take stock of every tree in the area and keep an eye on it. “People complain about dangerous trees and they are expected to be attended to within 60 days. But that is hardly ever done,” said tree authority member Niranjan Shetty who will raise the issue at the tree authority meeting in the civic body on Wednesday.