94 kg of nails removed from tree trunks during BMC’s decluttering drive

Mumbai: As part of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s special drive to declutter the space around the basins of roadside trees of Mumbai, the civic body has removed 1,325 illegal billboards from tree branches, demolished unwanted concrete slabs from around 983 trees and removed 94 kg of nails affixed on tree trunks.

Earlier this week, between April 18 and 21, the garden cell of the civic body had launched, “Vriksha Sanjeevani Abhiyaan”, with a focus on decluttering the space around tree basins.

Mumbai has around 30 lakh trees out of which around 2 lakh trees are on the roadside. According to the directives of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), it is compulsory to maintain a 3 by 3 feet gap around a tree basin to make sure the roots of the trees are not affected due to external disturbances.

Jeetendra Pardeshi, superintendent of the BMC garden cell, said that the campaign was like a tree walk that focused on cleaning the tree base from debris, stones, plastic waste and concrete structures, removing advertisements and hoardings that were affixed on the branches of the trees as well as removing nails from the trunks by using pliers and adding composts to the trees.

“We have involved citizens and students from various age groups and the primary objective was to spread awareness about conserving the trees and the NGT guidelines to the citizens,” Pardeshi said.

He added that the campaign was conducted across all 24 wards in Mumbai and students and citizens who participated in the drive were accompanied by officers and horticulturists. The BMC has also roped in several NGOs for this project as well.

Subhajit Mukherjee, ambassador of state government’s Majhi Vasundhara Abhiyaan and founder of NGO - Mission Green Mumbai have said that the campaign was the need of the hour as the roadside trees are treated very badly.

“Every day I get at least 5-6 videos showing encroachments around the trees. In many cases, the space around the tree basins is not maintained as local residents fix paver blocks to convert the footpaths into parking zones. The only solution to this problem is to make people aware of the basic ethos of tree conservation and the NGT rules,” Mukherjee said.