BMC Probe Into Chembur Tree Tragedy Sparks Blame Game Between Road And Garden Departments Over Negligence

Mumbai: The BMC's investigation committee formed in the aftermath of the Chembur tragedy where a roadside trees collapsed on a school bus, on Thursday had issued notices to the heads of civic road department and garden department to present their side and concerned documents, giving them 24 hours time to respond.

Two-Member Committee Faces Tough Task of Fixing Accountability

The time period given by the committee ended on Friday evening and the concerned officers submitted their responses, in which the road's department has submitted the drawings showing the concerned engineers did their job properly, while the garden department stated that notices were issued to the road's department to take precautions while carrying out the road works, civic sources said.

This has potentially led to a blame game among the two departments and a challenging task for the probe committee to decide which department's negligence it was, leading to the tree collapse.

The incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon when a 60-year-old roadside Peepal tree on Road No 11 in Chembur East collapsed onto a school bus, killing 11-year-old student Vihan Shrivastav and injuring four other children.

BMC Chief Appointed Panel, Suspended 3 Officials

On Wednesday, BMC chief Ashwini Bhide appointed a two-member committee, comprising deputy municipal commissioners, to investigate the incident and submit its report within eight days. Three officials – the assistant superintendent of gardens, a sub-engineer and an assistant engineer from the roads department – have been suspended for prima facie negligence pending the completion of a departmental inquiry.

The Free Press Journal had reported on Thursday that the investigation committee inspected the tree-collapse site and prima facie found that the storm water drain (SWD) had been diverted during road concretisation, damaging the roots, while the tree pit and base also appeared hollow. There was no open space around the tree base, an official present during the inspection said.

"The SWD was diverted accordingly to the drawings, protecting the tree. There are high chances that the tree was infected internally which led to weakening and collapse during heavy rainfall. The road concretisation was done one and half year ago, and an entire monsoon has passed in between. An horticulture/arborist can only assess if the tree was infected internally or it weakened because of damaged roots," a senior officer from the roads department said.

Meanwhile, an official from the civic garden department said that time and again notices have been issued to the roads department on damaging the trees during excavation, but several times no action is taken on ground apart from issuing further notice or filing police cases against the contractor or utility agency.

In the period of six months from October 2024 to March 2025, the BMC garden department had issued 328 notices to the roads department intimating that a total of 2,458 across 24 wards have been damaged due to road excavation. "This was when the road concretisation work was carried in full swing. The number possibly must have doubled now. We can say all these damaged trees with weak roots are dangerous, internally weak and prone to fall," the garden department officials said who did not wished to be named.

This newspaper tried calling Superintendent of Gardens, Jitendra Pradeshi for a comment, but the calls went unanswered.

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