SURAT: As part of its annual monsoon plans, the civic body’s garden department, even this year promises to grow new trees in the city. And so it has claimed that in the past five years, they have planted at least 10 lakh new trees (cumulative) within the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) limits. Even by conservative estimates of 60% survival rate, the city’s green cover should have increased by 6 lakh trees. However, the results on the ground paint a very barren picture.
According to SMC , it has a survival ratio of 70 per cent. But, in absence of tree census, it is never known if trees or saplings planted have survived or met the same fate like in the past. This year too, the ambitious exercise is getting ready to begin with public participation.
S Gautam, garden superintendent in SMC, said, “We will start our drive from World Environment Day. We have chalked out plans of plantation in the city and after finalising what types of trees, plants and saplings have to be planted at different places, we will go full steam and plant 10 lakh new trees.”
Deputy Commissioner, SMC in-charge of the plantation project for the year 2019-20, Rajesh Pandya said the civic body plans to plant 10 lakh plants this year, a majority of which will be taken up at the upcoming Bio-diversity park at Althan and at different SMC facilities like water works and sewerage stations. “We will be undertaking the whole programme this year with the help of number of NGOs,” he said.
The city has not seen any tree census since 2011, when it had just 3.24 lakh trees. The last figures revealed estimated tree cover in 1,184 hectare area to be just 3 per cent of the geographical area —lowest compared to other cities. Ideal standard requires at least 15 lakh trees in 324 sq km of city limits.