Planted along Worli sea face, experts call it poor choice

Move comes in after 50 trees along the promenade died or dried up in the past two years

Morning walkers at the Worli sea face were surprised to find 20 date palm trees planted along the promenade on Wednesday.

The BMC had transplanted the trees on Tuesday night. The move by the civic body’s garden department comes after almost 50 trees along the promenade died or dried up over the past two years.

Officials from garden department said that if these 15-footlong trees survived, the project will be replicated along the Haji Ali promenade as well.

Botanists, however, said that it was a poor choice of tree for an area along the coast, as the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) has a survival rate of 50%.

But residents have welcomed the move. “A lot of effort has gone into transplanting these trees at Worli. It is our duty as citizens to give the civic body time to see how these trees survive in their new habitat. It will be a welcome change for morning walkers,” said Dr Neelam Nijhara, secretary, Worli walkers association and member of Worli sea face forum.

HT first reported in August 2015 that Samudraphal trees (barringtonia racemosa) planted on the walking track along the Worli Sea Face promenade started dying mysteriously.

Environmentalists said that the tree bases hardly had any soil and comprised mostly concrete, which prevented water from reaching the roots. Others said that the trees, especially their roots, were affected by sea water that floods the walkway during high tide.

This prompted the department to select a new variety that would have a better chance of survival. “The Worli sea face is extremely windy and often — especially during the monsoon — trees get bruised because of the wind,” said Amol Vasaikar, assistant superintendent, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) garden department. He added, “Also, the spray of salt water from the sea during high tide used to percolate at the base of the trees. On sunny days, the leaves would absorb the salt and this caused the trees to dry up.”

Vasaikar said that the date palm tree was an appropriate choice for the promenade as it could withstand both high winds and salt water.

Botanists, however, said that there was no historical record of date palms being planted along the Mumbai coast. “While these trees may survive, it is not an appropriate choice for a city like Mumbai. They have a 50% chance of surviving and they cannot withstand the high amount of salt deposition,” said botanist Marselin Almeida.

An FIR was registered by the cyber cell of the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police on Wednesday after Bollywood producer Boney Kapoor complained on Tuesday that his Twitter handle was hacked by an unidentified person in December 2016.

According to Kapoor, the accused hacked into his twitter handle - @Boneykapoor - and asked for Rs 10,000 from one of his acquaintances.

Deputy commissioner of police, cyber, Akhileshkumar Singh said that the accused tried to extort money from others as well. When Kapoor learnt about it, he immediately changed the password and managed to retrieve his twitter account.

The police registered a FIR under section 419 (impersonation) of IPC and 66c (identity theft) and 66d (Punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of IT Act. If convicted, the accused may face imprisonment up to three years and fine.