Environment friendly Thanekars can now get the status of the trees planted in the city through various drives on the TMC website. Moreover, the green cover is set to get a boost as the civic body will have a 10,000 square foot green wall, gardens and urban forest in the city.
In the past three years, crores of trees were planted in Thane district through various plantation drives. Making the initiative more transparent the Thane municipal corporation (TMC) have decided to update the number of trees planted by them on their website. “Till April TMC is to plant 30,000 more trees in the city which will be watered by tankers,” said Sanjeev Jaiswal, TMC commissioner in a meeting held by the Tree Authority. “The information about these trees will be uploaded on our website through GPS,” he added.
This is the first major decision by the TMC, after the formation of its controversial Tree Authority (TA). The corporation will develop green walls at various locations in the city in an area of 10,000 sq meters in the next three months. Three gardens in the city which can be public or private will be developed by the civic body. Also the empty spaces underneath the flyovers will be beautified through CSR (corporate social responsibility) and the TMC. The TA members also suggested creating an urban forest in the city using Japanese technique promulgated by horticulturist Akira Miyawaki.
Moreover, a tree conference will be held in Thane every three months to create awareness among the residents about the importance of trees and global warming. “People can also get information about various types of plants, saplings, how they can procure and plant them, various government schemes providing saplings, etc.,” says Sandip Malvi, deputy commissioner, TMC.
However the TA has given an approval to cut 423 trees for various infrastructural projects but assured that 6,270 trees will be planted elsewhere. Moreover, 456 trees will be replanted. From the year 2015-2017 the TMC have planted over five lakh trees in Thane.
TMC's decision to go green have been applauded by residents. “This is a welcome move, as trees are cut to make way for development. This initiative will help beautify the city and also counter pollution,” says Aniket Satam, a resident of Naupada. Another resident Nelson D'Mello, said that all these initiatives are good but needs to be followed up. “Planting trees is good but the biggest challenge is to maintain them. Two years back we planted 2000 trees in Parkwood area of Ghodbunder road, but now only 500 of them have left as there was no provision to water them.”
