Poor monitoring, lack of protection the main concerns

KANPUR:The plantation drives in the city have suffered due to poor monitoring and lack of protection of the plants at a tender age, residents and experts say.

Though citizens, non-government organisations (NGOs) and government departments enthusiastically planted saplings, they failed to take care of them.

An HT team found that in most of the posh localities, over 50% of saplings died soon after their plantation due to lack of care in the past years. The team also found that the open land for plantation had shrunk.

Rajesh Bhaskar and Sukhbir Singh, residents of Pandu Nagar in Kanpur, said they planted saplings in the community park and on the pavements.

While the plants in the park grew well, the saplings on the pavements died as these were not watered, they said.

Kirti Raman Sachdeva of Lajpat Nagar said saplings planted near the roadside died due to road digging. The tree guards were stolen, he added.

It was found that in most of the congested localities like Gumti Number 5, P Road, Arya Nagar, Chamanganj and several other areas, the plantation drive could not be started effectively in the past for want of spare land.

NCC cadets and college students Shewta Maheshwari, Poonam, Hridesh Pandey and others said they felt sad about the death of saplings they had planted last year.

The city has no exact record of the number of saplings planted in the past one year and their survival rate. Neverethless, another ambitious target of planting new saplings in the city was fixed.

VK Singh, udyan adhikari of the Kanpur Municipal Corporation (KMC), said the municipal corporation will plant about 29,000 saplings during the year in the parks owned by the civic body. The KMC has about 800 parks. Barring a few, most of them are in a shabby condition due to the lack of gardeners.

“Plantation in parks can easily be monitored and the saplings can be given protection from animals and undesirable elements at the initial stage. Besides, saplings will be planted on pavements,” he added.

A senior official of the KMC, who refused to be named, admitted that open land in the city had shrunk and there was hardly any place for planting saplings.

As people opposed plantation of saplings near or on pavements, it became difficult to achieve cent percent target of plantation, he added.

Divisional forest officer Arvind Kumar Yadav said the preparations for the planting saplings had started in July. The plantation season lasts four months from July to October.

“We will supply the saplings to anyone on payment,” he said.

He said the forest department ensured survival of 90% of the saplings. Other departments also achieved the same survival rate, more or less, he added.

The HT team found that several NGOs, schools and colleges had been participating in plantation drives on special occasions. Most of the educational institutions planted the saplings on their own campus and sometimes they did so on the roadside. But there was no one to monitor the saplings planted near the pavements.

Subhas Singh, convenor of the ‘Green Society’ NGO, said there was almost no space left for plantation due to a construction boom.

› We planted saplings but the survival rate has been very poor. Moreover, the saplings which grew into trees were felled for organising a VIP event

COLLEGE PROFESSOR