BENGALURU: Citizen's efforts to plant saplings on a stretch failed due to lack of planning and coordination among various civic agencies. They had to abandon planting of 900 saplings on the Dommasandra-Sarjapur stretch without planting a single one, after underlying electrical cables got damaged during the process.Raicy Mathew, a resident of Sarjapura, said, “About two years ago, a 6-km stretch from Dommasandra to Sarjapur Circle was widened, for which about 200-300 trees were felled.” Mathew said residents of Sarjapura discovered that the road had not been widened with proper planning, and no space had been left for replanting trees.
Determined to get re-planting done, a group of residents approached various civic agencies for six to eight months, and managed to get re-planting of 900 saplings on the stretch approved. When finally the planting exercise begun on July 20, electric cables were discovered beneath and the activity was stopped.“We got a call around 10.30am from an official of the Forest department, and were told we needed to find an alternative space for the saplings,” Mathew said. However the digging also damaged one or more underground cables which caused a power cut in a portion of the area.
A local Bescom official spoke to Deepanjali Naik, one of the residents who was involved in getting the plantation sanctioned, and blamed her for the power cut. “In addition, some other residents also misunderstood that we were responsible for the power cut. We put in a lot of effort for a good cause, and we got blamed for the civic agencies’ lack of communication with each other. It is very demotivating,” she said.
Rangaswamy, Range Forest Officer (RFO) of Anekal Range confirmed that no space was available to plant the saplings, and hence the proposal had been stalled. “Now, the only solution is to plant them in spaces in front of the shops, for which the grama panchayat will have to convince shop owners to provide space,” he said.A PWD official said it was the Forest departmen’s responsibility to re-plant trees. “The PWD had taken permission beforehand from the Forest departmen for cutting trees, and we had also paid them an amount of `1,911 as the cost to maintain each tree for five years,” he said.