Green cost of infrastructure projects: 40,000 trees

Delhi  will be gaining infrastructure and better transport facilities thanks to the Commonwealth Games but that is coming at a cost. The city lost about 40,000 trees to Metro  construction, flyovers and other Games-related projects in the past few years. Despite this, the green cover has been growing at an average annual rate of 1% which sources say is due to the high rate of compensatory plantation except that most of it is in city forests that are at the edge of the city.

According to government data, the Metro project alone accounted for 4,340 trees either being felled or transplanted while over 8,000 trees had to be felled for about 30 flyover projects. "However, it is interesting to note that between 2007 and 2008, 18 city forests came up only on the basis of compensatory plantation. Trees are an unavoidable loss if infrastructure is to be developed but the Delhi cabinet's decision to make plantation of 10 plants compulsory for each tree felled has had a really positive impact on the city's green cover,'' said officials.

The argument didn't go down too well with environmentalists. "There is no compensation for the loss of a fully grown, mature tree. While we cannot dispute the rise in green cover, the city seems to be turning into a concrete jungle while the forests are being created on the boundary. There is also no verification of how much compensatory plantation has been undertaken so far. A lot of trees can be saved if only project planning considers these aspects. Can the government really account for trees that were lost in projects like streetscaping where the contractors could not be bothered with preserving the greenery,'' said a tree expert.

Government sources, however, said that the forest department itself had undertaken compensatory plantation of about 3 lakh saplings and would be planting an additional 25,000 saplings under compensatory afforestation fund management and planning authority (CAMPA) funds. "The forest department is responsible for compensatory plantation of DMRC, BRT and NHAI. Other than that, a review of all other agencies will be carried out shortly to assess how their plantation drive is going. In case they are not able to meet their targets, the forest department will do it for them from the money that has been deposited with them. Again, not all the compensatory plantation has been done in city forests. Land was earmarked for trees even in and around the projects that came up or are underway and these will be greened once work is finished. Under CAMPA, an additional 25,000 saplings will be planted next year as well,'' said an official.