Shimla:
The monsoon rains, floods and landslides have uprooted hundreds of trees in the northern Indian hill town of Shimla. A large number of nearly 1000 Deodar trees were uprooted, more than 500 dangerous trees were removed, and nearly 800 such dangerous trees are still pending on the Shimla Municipal Corporation’s dangerous tree list, pending application details.
The environmentalists, local residents, former mayors and deputy mayors of Shimla City accused the authorities of illegally cutting down trees in the name of removing dangerous trees.
Environmental activist and former deputy mayor of Shimla Municipal Corporation, Tikender Singh Panwar, said it is necessary to guarantee five times more plantation of the removed trees.
“The point is who made these trees dangerous? We made them vulnerable because human activity and construction has led to land erosion. There are people who are trying to remove trees in the name of dangerous trees,” said Tikender Singh Panwar.
“It should be ensured that no buildings are built in the areas where these trees are removed. Care should be taken to increase green cover and there is a need for systemic forestry in the city,” he added.
“As we have talked about the city resilience index, the temperature will rise, which will be dangerous. Not even a single person has died due to tree uprooting in Shimla. Now, in the receding monsoon, tree pruning has to be We are reducing the green coverage and as the scientists say we need to increase the green coverage,” said Tikender Singh Panwar.
Former Mayor of Shimla Municipal Corporation Sanjay Chauhan said, “The beauty of Shimla lies in the greenery of the forests, the oak trees and also the Deodar trees. The British also chose Shimla and they built some important good buildings.”
“The forest rights have been with the Shimla Municipal Corporation since then under the Himachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act 1994. We learned from 2012 to 2017 that the forest right belongs to the Shimla Municipal Corporation. The mayor should form the tree authority committee as the chairman said Sanjay Chauhan.
“We used to remove dangerous trees as per the proper requirements and recommendations of the committee so that the uprooting does not happen in the rainy and snowy season. The uprooting of trees this year happened due to mismanagement. The Tree Authority Committee has not been in office for six months old after the Shimla Municipal Corporation came to power,” said the former mayor of the Shimla Municipal Corporation.
“Some influential people are trying to remove trees; we demand that action be taken against those who do this. Under the law there is a provision that it is necessary to plant five trees if one tree is cut down as a dangerous tree. There must be a white paper for this that shows how many trees have been uprooted and how many have been removed. There is a committee of experts from the Ministry of Forestry, Horticulture and other experts who recommend and remove such trees. Some people have been trying to illegally remove such trees and that should be seriously investigated,” Chauhan added.
Shimla Municipal Corporation Mayor Surender Chauhan said thousands of trees were uprooted and removed during the rains and subsequent flooding in Shimla City. He said action will be taken against those who illegally cut down trees.
He also said care will be taken not to pass a map for building construction in areas where trees are removed under the hazardous category. He also said that the municipal corporation plans to plant more than 5,000 trees in the coming week to compensate for those that have been removed.
“Due to the landslides and rainfloods, thousands of trees have been uprooted in Shimla. We make sure that trees are not illegally removed. We have issued two warnings and action will be taken against those who have removed trees in the name of dangerous trees. We will make sure that no construction map is passed in such area,” said the mayor of Shimla Municipal Corporation.
“We are starting a week-long plantation campaign with the aim of planting more than 5,000 trees. We will try to plant 10,000 trees in the next week,” said Surender Chauhan.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published through a syndicated feed.)