The Indian  Express   24.08.2012

Civic body to begin tree census from next week

After a gap of four years, a census on the number of trees in the city will be conducted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s gardens department starting next week.

According to Superintendent of the gardens department, Kamalashankar Yadav, the census, to be held across the island city, the eastern suburbs, and the western suburbs, will now incorporate more comprehensive details and possibly revised numbers from previous records.

A senior BMC official said the methodology by which the trees are surveyed will also be changed. “During the 2008 census, there was a lot of controversy about the numbers, with allegations that they are inflated. We are going to revisit the trees, revise the criteria for calculation and possibly revise the numbers too.”

According to the 2008 census, Mumbai has a total of 1.9 million trees, of which 1.03 million were recorded on private land.

“The 2008 census does not have details on the new and old trees and other pieces of information useful for keeping track. We are now going to look at how many trees are taller than 50 ft, what is the age of every tree and how many medicinal trees are there in the city,” said Yadav.

The department will also check the condition of trees. “We have had an increasing number of tree falling incidents in the past couple of years, so we will check the status of existing trees and how many of them are in danger of falling,” said Yadav. The department is also discussing ways to preserve palm trees and datefruit trees. “These trees are over 20 ft in height and when they fall, they are uprooted so it is difficult to carry out re-plantation,” said Yadav. The department is also said to be looking at newer technologies for solutions to check unlawful felling of trees.

The  Hindu   24.08.2012

VMC chalks out plan to reduce pollution levels

Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has urged the people to extend their cooperation in making the city clean and green. Addressing a meeting with residential welfare associations (RWAs), park committees etc here on Thursday, Municipal Commissioner Md. Abdul Azeem said that the Corporation launched Green Mission 2012 project. The comprehensive plan was chalked out involving horticulture, engineering, and town planning wings of the Corporation.

The objective of the programme was to reduce the pollution levels in the city. The school children etc would take up sapling plantation on every Saturday. Green rallies would be organised, he said, adding, the roads and traffic islands’ beautification of traffic islands etc would also be taken up in near future.

Sanitation drive

Mr. Azeem said that the Corporation organised special sanitation drive to create awareness on sanitation among the public.

The drive resulted in announcing some residential areas as litter free colonies. The people should not throw the litter on to the streets and side drains.

They were requested to make use of door to door garbage collection. With it, the garbage disposal and keeping side drains clean would be easy, he said.

Youth Welfare Officer Velaga Joshi, CMOH M. Satyanarayana Raju, City Planner S. Chakrapani, Examiner of Accounts M. Varaprasad, Assistant Director of Horticulture N. Sujatha and Deputy Fire Officer Prasad were among those present at the meeting.