Navi Mumbai: Hundreds Of Trees Fall In 10 Days' Rain in NMMC

The last 10 days of rainfall witnessed a large number of trees falling in areas under the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) jurisdiction. The city has already seen over 100 trees falling.

Environmentalists as well as residents raise questions about the civic body’s annual tree trimming and its maintenance work. As part of the pre-monsoon preparation, the civic body trims trees and branches that can fall during the monsoon or cause the falling of large trees.

160 tree-falling incidents reported last year

Last year, around 160 tree-falling incidents were reported. However, this year, even after the first rainfall, around 100 trees have already been uprooted.

Every year, NMMC carries out pre-monsoon tree pruning in April and May, identifying and announcing dangerous trees to minimize risks during the rainy season. The pre-monsoon tree chopping was obviously a hotchpotch job, said NatConnect Foundation director B N Kumar. The NMMC ought to have properly identified the vulnerable trees and taken care.

Environmentalists blame civic body for its shoddy work

As per the data available with the disaster management of NMMC, since June 24, around 104 trees were uprooted. Environmentalists emphasise that a comprehensive tree survey and proper pruning before the monsoon season could have prevented many of these trees from falling. It is very disturbing to see a large number of trees falling and roads littered with branches, said Vishnu Joshi of Parsik Greens. “As it is, traffic goes for a toss during the monsoon and the tree fall and branch chopping adds to our woes,” Joshi said.

NMMC witnessed highest tree falling incidents in 2020

The civic body saw the highest number of tree-falling incidents during 2020 with 746 trees or branches falling and the reason was a number of cyclones, especially Tauktae. However, the next year, 2021, the number of trees falling was only 144. There was a drop of 80 percent in the incidents.

Normally, in a year, in the NMMC area, around 150 to 160 trees fall, including monsoon. While tree or branch falling instances are reported the whole year round, with majority of them during the monsoon or due to cyclones. Meanwhile, the civic body has floated a tender for a fresh survey of trees with geo-tagging for better monitoring and maintenance. As per the survey conducted in 2017, there were 8,57,295 trees in Navi Mumbai.