‘Prepare map to give Surat better lungs’

Surat: The Nature Club Surat (NCS), an NGO working for the protection of environment, has urged the state government to come up with an afforestation policy by developing urban forests in the city areas.
In a letter to CM Vijay Rupani, NCS stated that the mega city like Surat with a population of around 70 lakh needs at least 15% tree cover as per geographical area. According to the Gujarat forest department survey report published in 2011, Surat has the lowest tree density of 3% among eight municipal corporations in the state. The tree cover in urban areas in Surat is only the gardens managed by SMC, which provide less than 0.5% of the tree cover in Surat.
NCS states that the limits of SMC has been expanded by 146 sqkm taking the total area of Surat city to 472 square kilometres. At the time of the draft town planning scheme, plots for afforestation can be reserved.
Snehal Patel, president of NCS told TOI, “The government can start creating micro forests in the small plots of the huge swathe of land at Navsari Agriculture University (NAU) in Ghod Dod Road. The land allotted to NAU can be utilised for developing urban forest, which would act as lungs for the city. We have proposed to extend our help in developing these micro forests in the open spaces across the city.”