The Times of India 15.02.2013
Forget Guinness, AMC has no sapling record
AHMEDABAD: The ambitious tree plantation drive carried out as part of Swarnim Gujarat Prakruti Utsav
in the city in 2010, has spurted dismal results. Two year down the
line, the city's civic body has not been able to account for more than
30 thousand plants out of lakhs that were planted.
The mega plantation drive could not surpass this figure, but with
participation from thousands, 4,62,717 saplings were still planted with
1.61,735 within AMC
limits and 84,775 outside. In addition, in public-private partnership,
2,16,260 saplings were planted as part of the same drive.
However, two years later when an RTI activist Chintan Panchal sought
information in October last from authorities, AMC's garden department
could say that during a greening drive in 2011, they monitored the
samplings randomly planted in chunk of 500 at 22 sites - 44,770 plants
in all and found that 30,973 plants were alive. Besides this, the AMC
did not reply to any question pertaining to expenditure incurred over
green drive.
Petitioner's counsel Rashmin Jani said, "We supplied this data obtained
under RTI laws to show how bogus the authorities' claims are. The
executive engineer has promised to plant and grow more than double the
trees that are supposed to be chopped near Nal Sarovar. When saplings do
not survive in city area, who is to look after them in deserted
places?"
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation
(AMC) had began the drive to attain world record by planting 9.19 lakh
saplings in and around the city. The aim was to claim a Guinness Book
record, which was then held by Pakistan's Thatta, a semi-arid region in
Sind where nearly 5.41 lakh saplings were planted in one go.
This information was placed before the Gujarat high court on Thursday during proceeding on a PIL filed by Jagega Gujarat to save green cover between city and Nal Sarovar.
