Acting on the directions of Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is going to initiate de-choking of 3,691 trees in city, which includes the trees falling within the jurisdiction of the other authorities. The civic body conducted a survey regarding new trees to be de-choked in city. The survey found that a total of 3,691 trees are yet to be de-choked. However, more than 9,000 trees have been de-choked so far. As per the surrey, 3,360 trees are on medians or other roads falling under the jurisdiction of the NMC, 170 trees are under the jurisdiction of State PWD, 28 trees are under National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), 22 trees are under Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), 76 trees are under National Highway (PWD), and 35 trees are under the World Bank Division of PWD.

 

As per the information, the work of de-choking is in progress and the same will be completed within a period of 50 days. For quick implementation of the work and serve the purpose, the High Court directed NMC to de-choke all 3,691 trees and raise a demand towards the expenses incurred for such de-choking in respect of the trees falling within the jurisdiction of the other authorities. Laxmi Nagar Zone has the highest 820 trees which require de-choking. Whereas the remaining trees comes in various zones including Ashinagar Zone (747), Lakadganj Zone (383), Mangalwari Zone (340), Hanuman Nagar Zone (317), Dhantoli Zone (276), Gandhibag Zone (237), Nehru Nagar Zone (229), Dharampeth Zone (206), and Satranjipura Zone (136).

 

The committee which is monitoring the de-choking process on the orders of the High Court added three more members as per the directions of the court. All the three members also identified 528 new trees which require de-choking apart from these 3,691 trees. Majority of newly-identified trees come under the jurisdiction of NMC and the number is 406. 65 trees comes under the jurisdiction of World Bank division of PWD, 24 comes under NHAI, 14 comes under National Highway (PWD), 10 comes under State PWD, 6 trees comes under Nagpur Zilla Parishad, 2 trees comes under NIT and 1 tree comes under MIDC. In the first phase of de-choking, the committee identified 383 road stretches in city and 4,490 trees were choked. After de-choking all these trees, the expert committee identified these 3,691 plus 528 trees for de-choking. Among these 4,219 trees, the authorities de-choked 2,011 trees so far and the remaining work will be carried out by NMC soon.