NEW DELHI: A fresh set of guidelines to the Delhi government’s Tree Transplantation Policy 2020 is on the cards following concerns on low-survival rate of trees transplanted in the city. Guidelines reinforcing the policy may be introduced soon, said officials.
“Some changes are in the pipeline. At the moment, we are holding discussions with the agencies that carry out the work on the ground and the challenges that they are facing since the process is fairly new. The agencies submitted their responses of some observations,” said a senior official.
The official added that there are primarily three challenges to overcome right manpower, tools and process. “Site or tree preservation planning, which is an important requisite before the work starts is not being adequately done. Each tree has a different timeline of its growth, which differs from species to species. The basic to the survival of a tree needs to be worked out. The policy in itself is fine, it is only the execution that has to be worked upon with better monitoring,” the official said.
Also, since transplantation is being done on a large-scale, the task becomes even more challenging and requires adequate manpower. While environment experts have been raising concerns that old and full-grown trees with deep tap roots have little or no chances of survival, forest officials said that in some projects even such trees have shown 50% survival rate, which means it could be bettered.
The move has come after an interim survey report submitted by the forest department in the Delhi High Court this May showed that only 33.33% trees transplanted over the past one and a half years for various development projects have survived.
The policy, which was notified in December 2020, mandates transplantation of 80% of all trees identified to be felled with an 80% survival rate of these trees. The affidavit showed that overall only 5,487 of the 16,461 trees transplanted in the city over the past 1.5 years have survived, which is much lower than the threshold mandated in the policy.
Major concern
The affidavit showed that overall only 5,487 of the 16,461 trees moved in the city over the past 1.5 years have survived