Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The Indore Smart City Development Limited (ISCDL) is coming up with an innovation for the conservation and protection of trees in the city. It is creating a portal ‘Vraksha Mitra’ which will not only have the entire database of geo-tagged trees in the city but will also be a one-stop shop where a person can register his tree-related complaints and share tree-related queries. ISCDL CEO Divyank Singh said, “We are coming up with a portal which will be completely centred on the tree population in the city and its health,” and added, “It would take around two to three months to launch the portal which would be of immense benefit to the citizens.”
Similarly, ISCDL is executing survey and geo-tagging work in the city with the help of 150 people led by 20 botanists who are geo-tagging the trees and also checking their health. “So far we have done tagging in 26 wards of the city and have tagged around 4 lakh trees. We are also checking the health of the trees to forecast their projected life and other things. We are also measuring the tree canopy area and other measurements needed to check the growth, health and other details of a tree,” said Singh. Telling more about the portal, Singh said that the Vraksh Mitra will have online details of tree cutting, transplantation, tree ambulance, tree health and other such facilities.
The citizen will just have to register their complaint and ISCDL will do the rest of the work, he said. The census of trees will be done on a regular basis in specific intervals of time and data will be managed ward-wise and zone- wise which will be helpful in finding out areas where there is a need to plant more trees.
Also, it will help in better understanding the green cover of the city. The census of trees is part of a 5-year action plan for care, maintenance and upkeep of existing trees, future plantations and other plans for the flora of the city. This 5-year programme would focus on plantation to cutting and trimming of trees, their maintenance, regular monitoring and geo-tagging of all trees so that illegal cutting can be stopped. Of these 4.5 lakh trees, 2.5 lakh have been found on private land.
More than 75,000 trees are on government land while more than 30,000 are in gardens, while the remaining trees are on roadsides, footpaths, and other places. Among the trees that have been mapped, more than 3 lakh trees are indigenous, which include Neem, Mango, Peepal, and other categories, while about 1.5 lakh trees of foreign species have also been found. Trees planted in different areas are also being marked and their proper records will also be maintained.
Additionally, places in the city where saplings can be planted are also being identified. Trees that are more than 50 years old have been kept in the Heritage category. There are more than 1 lakh trees whose wood is used for other purposes including furniture, while almost the same number of trees are used for decorative purposes. There are also more than 85,000 fruit trees, which include mango, guava, and other fruit trees.
