Choked by concretisation, trees along city roads on the verge of collapse
   Date :13-Oct-2020

Divisional Commissioner o
 The neglect by administration that throttled this tree standing near the gate of Divisional Commissioner office, now can collapse at any time. (Pic by Satish Raut)
 
 
By Vikas Vaidya :
 
With heavy rains, winds blowing at higher speeds, many trees along the city streets fell down, giving the city fathers an escape from the blame of not caring for greenery. This has been happening constantly. Factually, it is like a slow-poisoning as trees are getting choked making them the fit case for collapse. The development works, concretisation of the roads, and the dumping of waste solid material at the bottom of the trees have choked the water resources of those trees leading them to feel helpless. These trees are coming down crashing now. Abhijit Bangar, during his tenure as Municipal Commissioner at Nagpur Municipal Corporation did conduct survey of some trees.
 
The team that worked hand in hand with the officials of Public Works Department (PWD) identified such 25,000 trees. These trees were dechoked, this is what NMC claimed. It was true, but more trees are still there which are choked and NMC failed to notice the same. Efforts of Bangar must be lauded for doing the work of dechoking of some trees on some streets with the involvement of agencies like NMC, Public Works Department (PWD). NMC along with PWD did take some measures in a scientific manner but these agencies could not resolve the issue of chocking of trees. Bangar as Municipal Commissioner had issued a-nine-point Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
 
The one point was regarding choping of trees. It had said, unless there is a prime necessity, the tree should not be cut. Secondly, the permission was to be taken by the authority with the reason for chopping the tree. The work of concretization, and the ignorant attitude of the labourers made all the difference. These labourers kept throwing the cement paver blocks and big stones at the trunks of trees ‘The Hitavada’ has been writing about choking of trees on roadside due to concretisation work. The process involved with development activities can be deadly to trees. Noted Architect Paramjit Singh Ahuja had shared his thoughts a year ago which are coming true. He had said, ‘Unless the damage is extreme, the trees may not die immediately but could decline over years.
 
With this delay in symptom development, one may not associate the loss of the tree with construction work. And therein lies the rub because the slow but eventual death of the tree is not recognizable as being associated with development activity, which in the first place is responsible for its death.’ His statement that the slow but eventual death of the tree is not recognizable is very important. The trees on their own are collapsing because they are not able to create their water resources as some of them died because of concretisation all over and some because of their suffocation.
 
 
Take example of the tree standing just outside the gate of Divisional Commissioner’s office where the tree that stood tall till last year is on the verge of collapse. What Bangar did as far as dechoking of trees is concerned his efforts must be lauded but the engineers appointed to do this work were not aware of how to do that de-choking, what measures were to be taken to protect those. The death of trees on account of development activities is preventable.
 
The debris of construction material dropped around the trees which many times contaminate the soil around trees. Contamination of soil through the leakage of chemicals from construction materials such as concrete, fuel and oil should be avoided through secure storage, says an environmentalist. The whole issue was brought to the notice of Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B but he did not reply. According to some officers in the administration now everybody talks about Covid while other issues are given less importance. But what if ecology of the city faces threat! Nobody cares.