NEW DELHI: Quick response (QR) tags have been removed from around 100 trees in Lodhi Gardens here after a forest department team conducted an inspection of trees and found that the tags had caused
extensive damage to the trunk of the trees.
Following the inspection, the forest department on Saturday issued a direction to the New Delhi Municipal Council to remove the tags from the trees, an official said.
In December last year, the NDMC had fixed QR codes to provide visitors information regarding the tree’s age, lifespan, botanical name, latitude, longitude, common name, girth, blooming season and canopy size.
The New Delhi Nature Society, the NGO that raised the issue with the forest department, said that the QR tags violated the National Green Tribunal order dated April 23, 2013 that says nothing can be fixed on trees.
“A portion of the trunk was cut out to fix these QR tags measuring 10 cm x 10 cm and up to 2.5 cm deep. It led to infection and caused penetrative damage to the trees,” he said.
After several hearings, a notice was issued to the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) last week to remove the QR tags. Earlier, the civic body had planned to use hooks to affix the tags on the trees instead of the plastic tags to ensure less damage.
As per the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, a fine of Rs 10,000 per tree can be imposed on the NDMC but no decision has been taken on this yet, he said.
New Delhi Nature Society’s Verhaen Khanna said medicine has been applied on trees to reverse the damage.
(With PTI inputs)