BMC Tree Authority an only neta club as tree expert slots lie vacant

Following the death of Sharda Ghodeswar by a sudden tree fall in Chembur last week, questions were raised about the casual and unscientific inspection that the city civic authority conducts. The various causes experts quoted were haphazard cutting, over concretization and planting of non native trees in the city. The city civic body BMC has a dedicated tree authority whose role is to protect and preserve the trees in Mumbai and take action against illegal tree cutting and trimming. However, information has come to fore that the authority does not have a single tree expert as its member and all the decisions are taken only by elected civic representatives from various parties.

The BMC’s Tree Authority has 15 members including ivic chief Ajoy Mehta. The present tree authority was made in March 2017 after the BMC elections and has 6 members of Shiv Sena, 5 members of BJP, two from Congress and one from NCP. While, all 10 positions for the tree experts are lying vacant.

“The state government’s social forestry department does not have any registered NGO in Mumbai zone to select tree experts from them”, said Sanvi Tandel, Shiv Sena corporator who head’s the BMC’s Garden committee. “The authority can …read more