Greens not buying into Nitin Gadkari’s plans for plantation and translocation of trees

NAGPUR: Union minister Nitin Gadkari’s announcement regarding felling of 4,522 trees and another 408 trees for inter modal station (IMS) and railway over bridge (ROB) and its approaches, respectively, at Ajni, has left environmentalists seething. They feel that the minister’s assurances of five times compensatory plantation and translocation of trees will not succeed.
Meanwhile, sources told TOI that the deadline to submit objections against felling of trees has been extended till June 30 by the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC).
Till Wednesday, NMC had received more than 200 objection letters. Activist Kunal Mourya informed that more than 11,000 people have signed for an online petition against felling of trees. “People from across the country are coming forward to protest against such large-scale felling,” he said.
On Wednesday, Gadkari tweeted that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which is the implementing authority of the projects, has initiated transplantation of trees at an identified forest land in Shankarpur on Wardha Road.
“It will also carry out additional five times compensatory plantation at suitable locations,” the minister added.
According to government officials, 4,522 trees will be cut for IMS and another 408 to build an ROB connecting the station. While a total of nearly 5,000 age-old trees will be fully cut, sources informed that 2,000 trees, for which no permission has been taken by the NMC garden department, will be transplanted.
According to this, a total of over 7,000 trees are at stake for phase-1 of the project. According to experts, transplantation of trees will be a big failure and a waste of public money. “Cost of transplanting one tree is around Rs 20,000. This means the total cost of transplanting 2023 trees will be around Rs 4 crores. This will be another scam,” said environment activist Jaydeep Das.
TOI has been repeatedly reporting about failure of transplantation in the city. Rs 10 lakh were spent for Maha Metro’s transplantation of 31 trees and none of them survived.
“Once the taproots of a tree are cut off, the tree will never survive. Scientifically also, it is not possible to transplant in our city's soil and climatic conditions. Trees can only be transplanted in coastal areas where there is moisture in the soil and humidity in atmosphere,” said environmental activist Anasuya Kale Chhabrani.
She added that compensatory plantations too have been a major failure. Recently, Gadkari had admitted that compensatory plantations done by NHAI have failed at many places.
Stating that not all trees are suitable for transplantation, founder of Green Vigil Foundation Kaustav Chatterjee said, “Transplantation of trees have been unsuccessful in Nagpur mainly due to the city’s climate. Even for trees being transplanted, compensatory plantation in the ratio 1: 5 should be done as a back-up plan.”
Chatterjee added that species chosen for compensatory plantation should be either of same species being cut or with high oxygen transfer and high carbon absorption. “Most importantly, compensatory plantation needs to be carried out preferably at Ajni or nearby places in order to maintain green lungs of our city,” he said.