THE Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) was expected to start ‘dechoking’ of 3000-plus trees in the city -- as per the direction of the honourable High Court (as part of the next phase of the effort). This effort, no doubt, was an urgent need of the city. To that extent, the city must welcome the direction of the honourable High Court and expect that the work on the project would be done with diligence and discipline. Of course,’The Hitavada’ has been campaigning for ‘dechoking’ of trees for the past 15-16 years. The word ‘dechoking’ refers to creating a little open-soil-space around the tree so that at least the main root of the tree can breathe air and absorb water -- which would keep the tree healthy.

 

 

 

The loosefooter feels that it is his bounden duty to remind the readers -- and thereby the city -- that first campaign of ‘The Hitavada’ for ‘dechoking’ of trees was undertaken in the winter of 2010. That campaign lasted for several weeks during which ‘The Hitavada’ published numerous pictures of literally hundreds of ‘choked’ trees. ‘The Hitavada’ also carried comparative accounts of how trees are cared for in places such as Beijing or Shanghai (that the loosefooter had visited as part of the Indian delegation headed by the then President of India Mrs. Pratibha Devisingh Patil and had brought actual pictures of open space around the tree-stem is protected there). Due notice, too, was taken on those efforts by the honourable High Court.

 

The administration was given appropriate direction to handle the issue promptly. Unfortunately, the administration did not seem to have issued permanent instructions to the contractors or its own inspectorial staff to monitor about how to plant trees and how to protect the stem-bases from getting ‘choked’ by cement and rubble. Now also, the civic administration (the NMC) requires goading from the honourable High Court to do the needful. This is very unfortunate. For, this shows how careless and irresponsible the civic administration is. For the past some time, the city did not have an elected body of corporators, and the city had been left to the mercy of the bureaucracy. Though personally most bureaucrats are good people, their commitment to an assignment is restricted to their tenure before they get transferred to another place and position.

 

So, they are less likely to be serious about such issues. Now that the city has elected body of corporators,can we hope that such issues would be taken care of by the people’s representatives ! If the loosefooter chooses to be politically right, then he must say that the elected corporators would do a good job. But on the ground of reality, the picture is different -- and far from standard. The issue of ‘dechoking’ of trees may not appear on the mental screens of the elected corporators, no matter to which party they may belong. For, the ‘choking’ of trees has had a long history in Nagpur -- even when elected corporators were in place.

 

There is another angle to this issue: If the corporators were absent, legislators and Members of Parliament were very much there. They still are there -- with uninterrupted tenures. Yet, none of them -- not a single one -- ever cared to notice how the administration ill-treats the trees. None of those high-priests of politics -- the MLAs, the MLCs, the MPs, the Ministers in the State or at the Centre -- ever uttered one word to change the situation in the right direction. Blinded as they were with their political power, these honourable men and women never had the sensitivity and sensibility even to understand the reality. This is the city’s grief. n