Augmenting green cover: KMC plants over 20K saplings

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has already planted over 20,000 saplings in the city in less than six months after it kicked off its massive plantation drive to restore and augment the green cover that suffered massive damage due to the severe cyclonic storm Amphan that hit the state on May 20.The KMC has also transplanted over 200 trees .

The transplantation and plantation process in the city officially kicked off from June 5 on the occasion of World Environment Day when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee planted three trees—Neem, Bakul and a Jarul—at Harish Park in Bhowanipore. "The availability of workforce has been a challenge amidst the Covid pandemic situation, but we have managed to plant more than 20,000 saplings. The plantation have taken place in all the 16 boroughs with the highest plantation taking place at Borough IX where nearly 2,000 saplings were planted. Each borough has had at least 700 to 800 plantations on an average," said a senior official of Parks & Gardens department of KMC.

The official said that plantation drive will continue for the next two months in which at least 5,000 more saplings will be planted. "We have to arrange for watering of these plants by coordinating with the Water Supply department. The 20,000 odd trees that we have planted till October did not require regular watering from any other source as there was rainfall till the end of last month," added the official. More than 15,000 trees were uprooted in the city itself due to Amphan.

The KMC in consultation with experts have adopted a scientific approach in tree plantation. Neem, Bakul, Jarul, Karamcha, Mahogany, Acacia, Mango, Akashmoni, Subabul are some of the trees that have been planted as these

species are less prone to damage in storms

Apart from KMC, a consortium of NGOs formed post Amphan have taken up the task of restoration of the trees that have been damaged. They have sucessfully restored 111 trees in Rabindra Sarobar, more than 30 trees at Maidan, over 20 trees at Hyland Park near Mukundapur in EM Bypass, a big tree near Maniktala ESI Hospital and some trees at Subhas Sarovar too.