Team Blitz India
MUMBAI: Verbal duels are erupting all too often all over Mumbai because of pre-monsoon trimming of trees. The slugfests are happening between residents and contractors over cars parked on roads which are lined with trees and where the trimming activity requires the vehicles to be removed.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has a target of pruning 1.12 lakh trees by June 7 and has appealed to citizens to remove their vehicles from roads and co-operate with the authorities. Tree trimming activities have faced stiff opposition from activists and tree lovers in the Bandra and Santacruz areas recently.
The corporation has already sent notices to 3,690 government and private premises asking them to trim or cut off any tree or branch that poses a danger to people. The responsibility for caring of trees in housing societies, government and semi-government organisations, and private spaces falls on the respective owners or users.
As per BMC sources, an agency appointed at ward level for the work has started pruning branches. Many complains were received from contractors about cars parked on the roadside. The owners were not cooperating and refused to remove their cars when requested by the workers who carried out trimming activities. The BMC has trimmed 15,821 trees / branches till now.
Overgrown branches often fall on the road, due to which motorists have to face inconvenience and sometimes also lead to accidents. There are 1.86 lakh trees on the roadside as per the last tree census. According to BMC, 1.46 lakh trees require trimming, out of which 1.12 lakh are roadside trees.
For civic authorities all over the country, preparations for monsoons by way of declogging of drains, decluttering of roadsides and pruning of branches of big trees lest they fall prey to hail and storm during the rainy season, is part of the standard operating procedures every year.
