The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday said that it will float tenders for appointment of contractors for pruning and maintenance of trees in Mumbai.
After the cyclone Tauktae had hit the city last week, as many as 812 trees and more than 1,400 branches had fallen across the city, accounting to one of the highest losses in terms of trees in Mumbai. Last week, during the standing committee meeting, the opposition alleged that the contract for maintenance of trees signed with private contractors was not extended post March.
On Monday, during the tree committee meeting, a proposal for appointing new contractors was cleared by the members.
"In the wake of the second wave of the pandemic, all the meetings got temporarily suspended, we had temporarily extended the contract with the contractors whom we had appointed earlier, now a new tender has been raised for appointment of new contractors," said an official of garden cell.
Members of BJP present in the committee, questioned the delay of the tender.
Abhijeet Samant, a BJP corporator and member of tree committee, has said that if the tenders were floated earlier then more trees could have been saved.
"Back in 2018, the BMC had floated a tender for acquiring an automated hacksaw with lift for pruning trees, but that was never procured," said Samant during the meeting.