The city may lose 2,370 trees for various development projects, as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) starts the process to clear 14 pending proposals.

These proposals were pending as the Bombay high court (HC), in October 2018, asked the BMC’s tree authority committee to stop working until it appoints independent expert members.

The BMC submitted a list of these experts to the court on Monday. While the high court is yet to approve the experts’ appointment to the panel,the civic body put these proposals in the public domain.

Based on the projects, the agencies proposing them have given an estimate of the number of trees that might have to be cut or transplanted.

Of the 2,370 trees likely to be affected, 804 could be cut, the remaining 1,566 would be transplanted. Of the total, 836 trees will be affected for construction of six stations for the Metro 2B line, a depot at Mandale and the construction of the Metro route between ESIC Nagar, Andheri, to Nanavati Hospital, Vile Parle; 842 trees for the construction of a hospital at Kandivli (West); 133 trees for building a cycle track along water pipelines, which is BMC’s pet project named ‘Green Wheels along Blue lines’; 201 trees to build flyovers at Borivli, Versova and Vikhroli; 147 trees to build a drainage system at Kandivli; 67 trees to improve road infrastructure at Bhandup; 37 trees for a sewage treatment plant and pumping station at Powai Lake; 43 trees to build staff quarters for conservancy workers at Chembur and 64 trees for a private building construction at Chembur.

Citizens can file their suggestions and object to these proposals till April 5.

You can either send an email to the garden department at sg.gardens@mcgm.gov.in or send a letter to the office of Tree Authority, VJB Udyan, Byculla.

On Monday, the BMC finally cleared four names to be appointed as experts on the panel, and it is now rushing to clear as many proposals possible.

Activist Zoru Bhatena had earlier filed a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the validity of the tree authority, as it was functioning without independent experts. “First, the high court needs to clear these names and lift the stay on the committee. Also, now these names have been cleared, we will see many such proposals which will affect thousands of trees across the city.”

First Published: Apr 04, 2019 01:09 IST