BENGALURU: Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun held a meeting with experts on Tuesday to look into methods to prevent trees from being uprooted by heavy rain. Following the meeting, the BBMP plans to use Rs 5 crore to plant one lakh trees across the city, of which 75,000 are ready for plantation.
The BBMP forest will plant Neem, Pongam, Honge, Champaka, Mahogany, Pride of India, Nerale, Tabebuia and Sampige. Experts will regularly check upon these trees.
The showers on May 25 and 26 uprooted 100 trees and more than 80 branches fell, bringing down electric poles and wires and damaging several vehicles, besides killing one person.
Member of Bangalore Environment Trust and Tree doctor Vijay Nishanth, Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF) MK Chola Raju and Special Commissioner Project (Forest) Ravi Kumar were part of the meeting.
“Considering the trees uprooted by heavy rain, a meeting was held with urban conservationists and environmentalists to come up with a plan to save trees in such events,” said Gangambike.
Tree doctor Vijay Nishanth said, “The spot for plantations will be checked. If planted the right way and taken care of, the trees can withstand heavy rain and wind. We will list out more species of trees for the city soon.”
Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF), M K Chola Raju said four tenders have been approved. Among the eight zones, permission has been granted for four zones for plantation. “Yelahanka, RR Nagar, South and West zones have got permission. We will plant trees in tree parks which have more empty space,” he said.
The mayor was also informed that tree guards were actually harmful for the trees. “We plan to get new guards which have a lock system. Once the tree is grown, the lock will be opened and these guards will be reused for younger trees elsewhere,” she said.
The BBMP has also decided to adopt GPS tracking devices to note down details of a tree and start a website on tree census.