Mumbai gets its tree authority

A 13-member tree authority was constituted and their names announced during the general body meeting of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) general body meeting on Monday

MUMBAI: After a brief tussle over who should preside over the committee, the BMC has finally constituted the city’s new tree authority – the panel tasked with safeguarding Mumbai’s green cover.

Mumbai, India - July 23, 2022: A bird’s eye view of the Metro-3 depot plot in Aarey Colony, showing the current extent of green cover, along with existing structures that were built by MMRCL prior to 2019, at Goregaon, in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, July 23, 2022. (Photo by Vijay Bate/HT Photo) (HT PHOTO)

A 13-member tree authority was constituted and their names announced during the general body meeting of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) general body meeting on Monday.

The committee includes five members from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), four from the Shiv Sena (UBT), two from the Shiv Sena and one member each from the Congress and the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen. While the committee’s composition depends of the relative strength of the political parties in the BMC, the members were nominated by their respective parties.

The municipal commissioner is the chairperson of the tree authority, and the chairperson of the market and garden committee is an ex-officio member. The next step will be to nominate experts to the committee, which can be equal to or fewer than the number of elected representatives on the panel.

Interestingly, the formation of the tree authority was delayed by a couple of weeks due to differences over who would preside as tree officer. According to civic sources, differences arose between superintendent of gardens Jitendra Pardeshi and deputy municipal commissioner (garden) Ajitkumar Ambi over who would be nominated to the post.

Th civic administration finally went with Pardeshi, after he cited Supreme Court (SC) orders, to show how only a tree expert could be appointed as the tree officer.

The tree authority is an important civic committee, taking decisions on the city’s tree cover, including permissions to cut trees and the planting of new ones through the civic gardens department.

The role of the tree authority came into sharp focus in 2019, when the government sought to build a car shed for the metro’s Line 3 in the Aarey forest, leading to a wave of massive protests. Around 2,185 trees were to be axed, including 461 trees for transplantation.

Sashirekha Sureshkumar, a tree expert on the tree authority at the time, said: “Often, the tree authority takes decisions on proposals to cut trees, sometimes healthy trees, where lame excuses are cited. During the Aarey protests, two of us experts on the panel opposed the proposal. Our opinion was not taken into consideration and they approved the proposal anyway. After that, the BMC didn’t intimate me about a single meeting, via email or letters, and then got me out of the committee citing absenteeism for three consecutive meetings.”