City in red over green cover

Tree cover diminishes by 40 per cent as illegal tree cutting continues and people flout the HC norm of planting three trees for cutting one

Tree cover diminishes by 40 per cent as illegal tree cutting continues and people flout the HC norm of planting three trees for cutting one

Urbanisation might have taken the city by storm, but it has endangered the city's green canopy, which is becoming thinner by the day.


In danger: PMC is not taking strict actions against the culprits who either
u00a0illegally cut a tree for space or do not replace a fallen tree with three
planted trees at some other location. Pic/Jignesh Mistry

Blame it on people's negligence or the PMC for not taking concrete actions against culprits who cut the trees illegally, the Environmental Status Report of 2009-10 has revealed that Pune has lost almost 40 per cent of its green cover over a decade.

"PMC's estimate of the total number of trees in the city is 32, 80,000. On the other hand, Forest Department made a survey in 1999, which enlisted a total 45.85 lakh trees in Pune," said Prabhakar Kukdolkar, Research Officer, Forest Department.u00a0

Yesterday, around 25 trees were cut near Baner and the localities had to inform police after the PMC failed to take any action. Anupam Saraf, an environmentalist from Jal Biradarim said, "We are filing an FIR with Chatushrungi police station as PMC is not taking any efforts to protect environment."

"In February this year, about 500 bamboo trees were uprooted in the same area," he added.Basing his on an RTI report, tree lovers Deepak Vahikar, Vaibhav Gandhi and Vinod Jain, said, "Illegal tree cutting practice is rampant in the city. We have an on record 82,000 trees, which were illegally hacked from the year 2002 to 10. The unofficial figure must be more than the double."

Lax attitude
Though, the civic body has not taken any tree census since last five years, the job was outsourced to a private organization for Rs 2.5 crore. However, nothing has materialised till date.

Flouting rules
The PMC had recorded 4,071 tree-cutting permissions given to some builders and citizens for various purposes till March 9, 2011.u00a0 "But only 4,440 trees were planted instead of the 12,213 trees. The HC order has categorically instructed to plant three trees after cutting one," Jain said. (see box) "We want a thorough probe in the issue and request the HC to appoint a special committee for more investigations," he added.u00a0Vahikar on the other hand, complained that the PMC has never bothered to recover the deposit amount of Rs 3.30 lakh from offenders for cutting trees in the city.

The Other Side
Bhanudas Mane, Deputy Commissioner (Garden Department) said: "We are going as per the HC instructions and also taking action against those who are not following the directives. It is true that we have a lean staff and it is difficult to monitor each and every incident0. But we shall
overcome this problem soon.

The HC order
PMC Tree Authority orders a private depositor to plant three trees against cutting a single tree for construction work. Rs 10,000 are collected as a deposited amount by the PMC, which can be claimed later. Usually trees of local species only are given the permission to be cut. The depositor has to replace every tree that is cut by three plants that should be grown upto two to three years.