Citizens blame BMC for not following norms while trimming trees; highest number of incidents in the western suburbs.
While the drowning of 59 people over the last five years at the city beaches has become a major issue, tree-fall incidents claiming lives is another concern Mumbaikars and civic authorities experience during the monsoon.
As per the details available with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), 21 people have lost their lives, while 112 others have suffered injuries in a total of 10,454 incidents of tree-fall across the city since 2005. Most of the incidents have been reported in western suburbs (4,175). In the island city and eastern suburbs, there were 3,897 and 2,382 incidents respectively.
This year too, the highest number of incidents has been recorded from the western suburbs (216), followed by the eastern suburbs (157) and the island city (147), making it a total of 520 incidents.
“Chembur, Kurla and Ghatkopar in the eastern suburbs; Andheri and Khar in the western suburbs and Matunga, Sion and Wadala in the island city are the areas from where more numbers of calls have been received till now this year,” said a senior civic official.
Mumbaikars blame the BMC for doing its job in a primitive manner. “No guidelines are followed while trimming/cutting/transplanting trees. Even when petty civic works like constructing footpaths are carried out, trees are besieged by paver blocks in a way that their roots can’t expand, leading to falls,” said
Harishchandra Pandey, Kandivli resident.
BJP corporator Ameet Satam, member of the tree authority, demanded the BMC improves its response time to avert mishaps.
“Residents too need to be more vigilant. Once a resident identifies a dangerous tree, he/she should immediately bring it to the notice of the BMC, which should react quickly on complaints,” said Satam.
However, the BMC is looking for a long-term solution. With its tree census slated to be conducted from this year, the civic body plans to take efforts to minimise occurrence of such incidents.
“We will carry out survey in detail to garner details like height, girth and types of trees. Following the study, we will be in a better position to decide what type of trees need to be given what space for their roots to expand properly,” said additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta.
Gupta, though, said that it was not possible to completely eliminate the possibility of such incidents, as it is difficult to guess which tree may or may not fall.
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