Thane: Publish tree census, issue proper detailed notices, Activist tell TMC’s Tree department

An environment activist from Thane has highlighted the issue of tree census which has not been published yet. While, lack of proper deadlines on the public notices regarding the tree cuttings leads to obstacle to put forth suggestions and objections by citizen activists.

“Since, the last 10 years the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has not initiated to publish the Tree census, claiming that they have not yet completed the counting process. As per the tree census which is supposed to be published after every 5 years, has not been published by TMC after 2011,” said Rohit Joshi environmentalists and citizen activist from Thane.

Even after several notices to the concerned TMC officers, no corrections have been initiated yet; claimed activists.

“Whenever the said general notices are combined or published for several public and private projects seeking suggestion and objections from citizens for tree felling, transplantation and trimming required. It’s been noticed with lack of several details which needs to be uploaded on site or mentioned in the notice published in newspapers,” said Joshi.

The above lacking points were highlighted to the concerned TMC’s tree department, before a month, with an aim that the citizens should be aware about the number of trees in their city; how many are cut, trimmed and eligible to survive and how many are old trees which are rare need to be preserved, informed Joshi.

“The official that time assured to correct this important changes and lacking points in the public notice. However, all our pleas fall on deaf ears. A similar notice was lacking with the above mentioned points was published on February 13. Therefore, I have written to the TMC Aalka Khaire, Tree officer, Tree authority of TMC highlighting this same issue again on February 19,” said Joshi.

While TMC officials claimed that the civic body is working on most of the suggestions highlighted by the citizen activists.

“We have worked on most of the suggestions dropped by the activists, while we are also trying to work on remaining points which majorly includes uploading of photos, exact locations of the tree plantation or cutting etc. Our team is working with the technical department to work on these specific suggestions too,” said Khaire.

“While, the tree census will also be soon published, as 90 percent of the counting work has been completed, which was at half due to technical errors and later due to the pandemic situation, added Khaire.