The heritage tree that claimed the life of a 16-year-old at Carmel Convent School, Chandigarh, on July 8, being cleared on Saturday. (Express Photo)The death of a 16-year-old school student in Carmel Convent School, Sector 9, last month, has led to the horticulture wing of the Chandigarh administration and the UT’s civic body being flooded with complaints, applications for pruning of old trees.
According to details, the UT administration has received more than 600 applications/complaints urging authorities to prune or chop trees in the last one month.
Most of these complaints were received through the mobile application, ‘Im Chandigarh’, that has been launched by Chandigarh Smart City Limited. Though the mobile application was introduced last year, people have used the app to flood the administration with complaints of tree pruning/felling in the last one month, ever since Heerakshi, 16, died on July 8.
Officials said that said each SDO of the horticulture wing has been dealing with at least 120 complaints simultaneously at present. These complaints are being further divided and distributed to the area junior engineers (JEs), for taking the necessary action.
The SDOs are responsible for visiting every spot related to the category of dangerous tree and further forward updates about the same to the recently formed Tree Felling Committee (TFC).
Subscriber Only Stories
“I have received at least 170 requests in the last three days for the felling and pruning of trees. Before wrapping up work every day, I distribute these complaints to the area junior engineers and field officers,” an SDO of the horticulture wing of Chandigarh’s municipality said, requesting anonymity.
The Tree Felling Committee was constituted for reducing the time period of getting the approval of senior officers, including the Adviser, for dealing with dangerous trees. The committee had officials drawn from the civic body, the engineering and forest departments.
“A mechanism is being developed to dilute the powers of giving final approval for chopping of a tree from the office of Adviser, the office of the forest secretary or other equivalent level officer. Besides the “Im Chandigarh” app, city residents can also file their applications on the Chandigarh Smart City Limited web portal under the services option,” chief engineer of Chandigarh, CB Ojha, said.
According to new norms, the decision over the complaint of chopping of a dangerous tree will be taken within 2 days, complaint related to the pruning of tree will dispose of within 1 to 3 days, Green tree will dispose of within 15 days. The complaints related to the tree situated within the premises will be dealt by the horticulture wing of UT administration, tree outside the premises will be dealt by the horticulture wing of Municipal Corporation.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
First published on: 04-08-2022 at 10:27:43 pm