To encourage awareness and action for the protection of our environment, the World Environment Day is celebrated across the globe on June 5 every year. However, in stark contrast and clear violation of judicial directions, the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has embarked on a chopping drive under the guise of trimming and pruning trees in the twin-city.
The matter came to light when personnel attached to the MBMC’s Tree Authority under the supervision of a local municipal contractor, were found to be ruthlessly chopping the branches of trees in an unscientific way in the Balaji Nagar area of Bhayandar on World Environment Day.
It has been alleged that the unscientific trimming process was actually making the trees more susceptible to falling as their centre of gravity was disturbed. Moreover, the ruthless chopping could stunt the growth of trees causing mutation, consequently disrupting the natural fauna, defeating the sole purpose of preserving the greens while preventing damage due to falls in the rainy season.
“On one hand, authorities boast of planting more trees and on the other, they themselves are chopping them off under the garb of trimming,” alleged an environmentalist. “Appropriate directions will be given to the concerned to ensure proper trimming work,” assured civic chief C.K.Dange.
Notably, the Apex Court had recently upheld the ruling by Western Bench (Pune) of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to the Thane civic body for carrying out a modern, digitalised and scientific census of trees and also formulating a proper procedure to trim and prune trees while maintaining a record of all trimmed trees.
