‘Vista plantation to be as close to Lutyens’ design as possible’
While designing the new Central Vista, the focus of plantation will be to “keep it as close to the original Lutyens’ Delhi” plan, designers and architects working on the project said.
Environmentalist and author Pradip Krishen, who is advising the designers in the Central Vista redevelopment project, said that the new plantation scheme has been designed to replicate the British design for the Capital in 1912. It will also rectify the errors that the city’s horticulture departments have made over the years.
Krishen said that initially only 13 tree species were chosen to line the avenues of Lutyens’ Delhi; the number was subsequently increased to 16.
“The criteria were that the shape and the size of the trees chosen for that particular avenue should be just right in order to frame the feature they were facing. Three things were kept in mind: they had to be the right size, they had to be evergreen and they should not be common. That was the reason why species that the Mughals preferred, such as mango or shisham, did not find space in the avenue scheme,” Krishen explained.
Lutyens’s plan accounted for around 450 trees in all, of which at least 385 were rai-jamun trees. Today, however, there are at least 3,200 large trees (4,000 if the smaller ones and shrubs are included). Around 1,080 are raijamun trees, a spokesperson for HCP Design Planning and Management Private Limited (HCP), the firm in charge of the project design said. Of these, 21 are being transplanted to make space for amenities like toilets for the public, the spokesperson added.
To be sure, trees of this size can’t usually be successfully replanted.
Historians said that Lutyens initially designed this part of Delhi with all streets crossing at right angles. However, this was later tweaked, taking into account the dusty Delhi weather. Thus, the trees, hedges, even roundabouts were carefully designed as barriers to seasonal dust storms.
Krishen said as an advisor to the Central Vista project, he has tried to retain the original patterns of Lutyens’s design as much as possible. He said that the new design might also rectify the plantation done by the Central Public Works Department and the New Delhi Municipal Council over the years.
For instance, there was an original grid plan for the plantation of jamun trees. The design, which was called the “diamond grid”, only involved around 385 jamun trees, all planted in a diamond-like pattern.
“If you look at aerial images, the pattern is very interesting. It’s like small Xs drawn all over and at each end of the X a jamun tree was planted, and the rest of the space was left empty. But the CPWD in their course of plantation completely lost track of this pattern, mainly because they did not understand the original design,” Krishen said.
The spaces left empty by the original gardeners to create that pattern was filled in by planting new jamun trees.
But no one wanted to go back to that plan entirely or immediately because “that would mean getting rid of a huge number of jamun trees and nobody wanted that,” he added.
Krishen said that it was finally decided to have a “long-term replacement strategy”.
“We decided to adopt a scheme with a validity of at least 30 years, which means that in the future when a tree dies, it will not be replaced by a jamun tree so that a khali (empty space) remains khali and a bhara (occupied space) remains bhara, or will be replaced by a tree of another species,” Krishen said.
Project documents shows that 26 old jamun trees will be affected during constructions. These nearly 100-year-old trees, planted around 1921, are to be transplanted and not felled, but experts fear that they might not survive the transplantation.
Based on documents and aerial photographs dating back to the 1920S,HCP was able to recreate Lutyens’ tree plan along the avenue: a serrated grid of trees, comprising primarily of rai-jamun trees that flanked either side of the Central Vista Avenue and pines, maulsari and bistendu trees that were to cluster around what is now Vijay Chowk. The trees along the avenue criss-crossed over the waterways providing ample sitting space under the shade.
HCP’S proposal, based on advice from horticultural experts Kishen (based in Delhi) and Dr Prabhakar Rao (based in Bengaluru), aims to create a “tree plan” that will be realized over the next two to three decades as these trees reach their natural end.
“The draft plan for the plantation at Central Vista Avenue is likely to be a more populated criss-cross grid, similar to Lutyens’ pattern, which aims to preserve as many of these trees as possible without needing to transplant them,” the HCP spokesperson added.
“Many of the jamun trees are already at the end of their life cycles and are likely to die over the next two decades. So when they die, what should come up in that space? Should it be left alone? We’re trying to come up with a planting plan based on Lutyens’ cross pattern,” the spokesperson said standalone business enterprises.
Taxis, autos and other paratransit vehicles too will be allowed with a cap on maximum number of passengers, weddings are allowed with a maximum presence of 20 guests either at courts or inside residential premises. Funerals can be attended by a maximum of 20 guests. Religious sites can open but they cannot entertain visitors. Home delivery of goods will be allowed too.
Schools, colleges, coaching centres and education institutes will continue to remain closed and the restriction on social, political, cultural, religious and academic gatherings will continue too. Centres of mass congregations such as swimming pools, gymnasiums, yoga centres, cinema halls, theatres and multiplexes; banquet halls; auditoriums and business to business exhibition arenas; entertainment parks, water parks and public parks will also remain closed, Kejriwal said.
The lockdown in Delhi was imposed on April 19 in the light of a severe surge in Covid-19 cases which left the healthcare system overwhelmed. The city was under a hard lockdown – with only essential activities allowed – for six weeks before the first phase of relaxations were allowed last month.
“The Covid-19 situation in Delhi is under control now. We are now concerned largely about recovering the economy and preparing for a potential third wave. Yesterday, we launched 22 new oxygen plants. Day before yesterday, three oxygen storage plants were inaugurated. From Monday 5 am, more or less all economic activities will be allowed except a few. And few things will be allowed to function in a restricted fashion,” Kejriwal said.
He added that the administration will “keenly” observe the Covid-19 trends after the latest relaxations remain in force for a week.
“If cases continue going further down, all restrictions can be scaled down in a phased manner in the coming days. However, if cases go up, we may have to impose restrictions again. I urge everyone to strictly adhere to regulations and Covid-19 appropriate behaviour,” Kejriwal added.
The national capital recorded 255 new COVID-19 cases and 23 fatalities, the lowest since April 7, on Sunday. The positivity rate in the city stood at 0.35 per cent, according to the latest health bulletin.
National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI), which has more than 5,000 members across the country welcomed the development. “The industry could not recover from the shock of the first lockdown by the time the second lockdown happened. The industry is in distress. We hope the coming days will witness economic recovery . ... But the government should also allow bars to open. Prohibiting bars, especially when liquor stores are open and dine-in is allowed, makes no sense,” said Manpreet Singh, a Delhi-based restaurateur and treasurer of the association.
Arbind Singh, national coordinator of the National Association of Street Vendors of India, said: “The government should have allowed them earlier with strict protocols. But better late than never. Weekly market vendors are in extreme distress. Many of them are migrants and they have been struggling for food and ration.”
Health experts, however, warn that Covid-19 containment protocols will have to be observed in letter and spirit if the relaxations are not to backfire.
“The government should be very meticulous about the phased relaxations. 100% mask compliance should be... not just on paper but enforced efficiently as more public spaces open up. For markets and offices, the government should draft a policy of staggered timings to ensure that the crowd is under control. The government should keep a close watch on covid-19 trends and take its time in lifting restrictions from close spaces such as gyms, cinema halls, etc. Also, gatherings of any kind should not be allowed at this stage,” said Dr Jacob John, former head of the clinical virology department at Christian Medical College in Vellore.
all new deaths had taken place days before.
Similarly on Friday, 4,000 daily deaths were added to the country’s tally. But, on that day Maharashtra added a backlog of 2,213 deaths, Uttarakhand added 10 old fatalities and UP added four. This means that 56% were old. On Thursday, this proportion was 45% of the 3,410 reported deaths that day – 1,522 by Maharashtra, one in Goa, 14 in Uttarakhand, three in Punjab and one in UP.
This reconciliation touched a peak on Wednesday, when the national death tally touched a record high of 6,141, according to HT’S dashboard. Of these, 71% were old deaths, with a majority (3,951) coming from Bihar’s reconciliation. Other major contributors were Maharashtra (400) and Uttarakhand (30).
For Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, the reconciliation process has been a near-daily occurrence over the past month. The western state has updated its tally 25 days in the last month, while the hill state has done so 27 times in the same period.
In absolute numbers, Maharashtra has added 15,756 old deaths to its tally in the past month – constituting 53.5% of all fatalities the state reported in this time period. Uttarakhand has reconciled 807 deaths in the same time period – constituting 30.1% of its fatalities.
In Punjab, the process is a little more complicated as while reconciliation is a near-daily occurrence, the state also reduces repeat deaths fairly frequently. UP, which has been updating its case as well as death count like Punjab, has added at least 78 old deaths to its tally in the past month. Goa has only done so on four days between June 7 and June 10, adding a total of 75 deaths (7.7% of fatalities in the past month).
The Union health ministry, in response to an article in an international magazine that claimed India has suffered perhaps five to seven times ‘excess deaths’ than the official number, on Saturday said that states and Union territories record Covid-19 deaths as per guidance issued by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It added what it labelled as “unsound analysis” of extrapolation of data “without any epidemiological evidence”.
States and UTS have been urged through formal communications, multiple video conferences and through the deployment of Central teams for correct recording of deaths in accordance with laid down guidelines, Centre said.