Gurugram govt agencies take growing of transplanted trees route to up green cover

Gurugram: Having lost a significant amount of green cover due to felling of trees to accommodate the ongoing developmental work, pressure is now being exerted on various public agencies in Gurugram to improve the city's count of trees.

Taking cognisance of the challenges involved, government agencies have taken the route of growing the transplanted trees despite it being a costlier process.

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), taking a lead in the process has already begun the process of growing 5,717 transplanted trees for the project of Dwarka Expressway. Other public agencies like Haryana Shahri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) and Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) are also planning to follow a similar process.

The HSVP has been involved in growing transplanted trees in Golf Course Road while the GMDA has grown trees in the new sectors. "Our basic priority is to improve the city's green cover by planting a large number of trees. All the public agencies will work in a coordinated manner for achieving this objective. We will adopt various measures like using the process of transplanted trees to planting new saplings," said Amit Khatri, the Gurugram Deputy Commissioner who is also holding the additional charge of MCG.

While various government agencies have begun to adopt the process of growing transplanted trees, the initiative was initially started by various private developers in the city. The new process gained popularity after the experimentation of using it in golf courses and condominium societies yielded positive results. There are now plans to use this new process in major stretches along the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway, Sohna Road and various sectors in the New Gurugram area.

A major challenge for the implementation of this form of greenery process is its high cost. It is estimated that one transplanted tree costs between Rs 15,000 to 20,000. As the depth of the pit is deeper there is also a larger area that is required. Taking into account the stressed finances of various public agencies in Gurugram, only certain areas— as of now—are selected for the growing of such trees. The participation of multinational companies is also being sought under their corporate social responsibility. Improving the city's tree count has been listed as the city administration's major priority to improve air quality. Lack of maintenance, however, is resulting in a large number of trees choking to death.

According to environment experts' poor techniques adopted in the growing of the new saplings, exploitation of the trees in the form of drillings, poor groundwater recharging facilities have deteriorated the condition of surviving trees in the city. They further pointed out how exploitations in the form of drilling nails inside the bark of trees resulted in oozing out of the sap, causing infections and subsequent death of trees. Often the impact of the weak root structure of trees is felt during monsoon season or during dust storms when most of the trees are unable to withstand the wind pressure and fall off.