The BBMP, which hoped to distribute 10 lakh saplings across the city in 2017, was able to manage about six lakh. This effort to improve the green cover hasn’t yielded significant results, however. The recent budget includes a Rs 5 crore allocation for a large scale plantation drive but this time, civic authorities and citizens want more accountability. Officials in the BBMP say the contractor who plants the saplings will be responsible for fencing and watering them for a period of three years.Team DC reports
The change is unmistakable to people, who have lived in Bengaluru for decades. From being a true Garden City with a climate to match, it has transformed into a near concrete jungle, with much of its green cover lost to “development.”
While the city has been allowed to grow haphazardly, steamrolling over its greenery, the BBMP makes a token gesture every year of distributing saplings to compensate for the lost trees. Although it sees this as more than a gesture, the sad truth is most of the saplings don’t survive, leaving the city as barren as ever. In 2017 the agency distributed six lakh saplings among Bengalureans. but doesn’t seem know where they were planted or if they really helped in making the city greener.
Despite its clueless state, the BBMP has once again set aside as much as Rs 5 crore for a planting drive in the recent budget, leaving people rightly wondering if this money too is likely to go down the drain.
Says a concerned Bengalurean, Manoj, “Year after year, the BBMP claims to have planted lakhs of saplings, but where are they ? If this drive is actually taking place, the green cover should be increasing and we will not see a rise in temperature as we are doing.”
A former corporator says years ago when a team of corporators inspected the spots where the saplings were planted, the BBMP claimed that stray cows had eaten them. “This is only a cover-up for corruption within its ranks,” he charges.
Responding to the public protest over its failed saplings drive, a top official of the BBMP says this year it plans to rope in contractors to plant and water the saplings and make sure they grow as intended for three years. Following this, the saplings will be able to survive on their own, he explains. “It is also the duty of the people to safeguard these trees,” he stresses.
