Of caring for green-cover
| Date :16-Jan-2020 |
Vijay Phanshikar :
Finally, the proposed project to build a road through Bharat Van stands abandoned, much to the relief of Nature-lovers as well as those who have a well-defined portrayal of what their city of Nagpur should look like. This event may appear small on the face of it, but its importance to the city and its eco-system is immense. If this small event marks certain victory of the campaigners who rallied against slicing Bharat Van with a road and ultimately destroying it, it also should come as a reminder of how we the people should behave as regards the overall greenery in the city.
And, let us not forget that the term ‘people’ also includes people in positions of power and authority. Actually, it is time we the Nagpurians thought seriously about what we should do to improve the overall standards of the city -- including the standard of governance, the standard of waste management, the standard of maintenance of green cover, the standard of cleanliness, the standard of our schools run by the municipal and Zilla Parishad authorities, the standard of our public hospitals, the standard of our public transport ...! This list can be very long, so to say. But for the present moment, we must confine our thinking to maintenance of greenery in top shape.
‘The Hitavada’ has often campaigned for good care of the thousands of trees we have in the city -- in parks and gardens and grounds, in government compounds, in university and colleges campuses, in school premises and hospital arenas, along the roads and around the squares and plazas. ‘The Hitavada’ had exposed how carelessly we have blocked the trees at the base of their stems -- by cementing closely around the base so that the roots get no breathing space and watering margins.
When that campaign was going on, the civic authorities did demonstrate certain openness of mind to start dechoking the trees. That civic campaign, however, proved to be only a farce since thousands of trees along he city’s roads still gasp for breath and thirst for water down from their bases. The civic authorities were alert only till the time ‘The Hitavada’ campaign was on, and went into a stupor the moment the newspaper discontinued the campaign. The campaign was not stopped because we lost interest in it, but because we followed the thumb-rule of sensibility about the extent to which a campaign can be stretched. And we also explained our standpoint to the readers, with a hope that the work of dechoking of tree-bases would continue thereafter as well.
But the moment we discontinued the campaign, the civic authorities, too, discontinued their efforts of dechoking the tree-bases. And as that happened, the people in general, too, went into a stupor, and stopped bothering themselves about why the civic campaign was stopped. These thoughts now well up in mind with emergence of the point of success Nature-lovers scored about Bharat Van road. That is a big victory, all right, but against the backdrop of the whole city, it only indicates that a lot of good work still needs to be done meticulously. n