MUMBAI: Barely three days after TOI reported how a survey by residents of Bandra’s Mount Mary Road found 49 of 189 trees along their road infested with termites,
BMC sent a team on Friday morning to inspect and begin treating them.
Residents said the spraying of chemicals around the base where termites were spotted was a relief as they feared the trees would crash. In the past week, one person died while another was injured in tree crashes.
Maria D’Souza, chairperson of Mount Mary Kane Road advanced locality management (ALM), said it was heartening to see officials take action. “The H west ward team cut branches of trees naturally dead and inspected others. Chemical treatment was also given where required,” she said.
The ALM was willing to treat the trees themselves but the high cost deterred them.
Local corporator Asif Zakaria who was present with the garden department staff said this was required to avoid any mishap. “It is good BMC inspected the trees and acted quickly,” Zakaria said.
Assistant municipal commissioner (H west ward) Sharad Ughade said, “We have drawn out an action plan which includes identification of infested branches/trees in the vicinity, scratching/removing visually observed infestation with a brush, opening
termite tubes and spraying insecticides. We treated 21 trees, of which seven were heavily infested on Friday. The remaining will be treated next week. Non-infected trees will be given preventive spray treatment,” he said.
Trees where the soil was wet will be treated later, he said. “The treatment will be repeated thrice in two months and we will check it for nine months. If required, the frequency of treatment will be increased. This same method will be adopted in other areas,” he added.
