Chandigarh, April 8
To avoid cutting trees in City Beautiful, known internationally for its greenery, the Chandigarh forest department is adopting an innovative method of uprooting and transplanting trees to make land available for various development works and also preserve the greenery of the town.
In this process, the department uprooted trees from the land that had been earmarked for taking up development work in the city.
About 250 trees from three places, which were earmarked for different developmental works, have been uprooted and transplanted at other places in the city.
Out of these 50 per cent trees have survived, which is a good result. The forest department could thus save many grown-up trees and add to the beauty of the city.
The department uprooted trees from the land earmarked for the Sector 43 bus stand, Rajiv Gandhi IT park and from some parts in Sharanpur in February this year.
About 100 trees each have been successfully transplanted in Sector 51 and behind Sukhna lake on the land of Kambwala and 50 in the surrounding area of IT park.
The trees, which were transplanted, are Shisham, Amla, Neem, Poplar, Shahtut, Guava and Toot.
While talking to The Tribune, deputy conservator of forests Ishwar Singh stated that the department had taken this step to have instant green belt in and around the area, which is allocated for developmental and commercial work. He said this would also help in providing a temporary green belt, which was supportive for the city.
Ishwar Singh stated that this besides maintaining environment, would also help in preventing encroachment of the land in and around the city by slum dwellers.
He said this year the forest department was going to provide green cover to the vacant land from Sectors 52 to 56 by planting the trees that would be uprooted for taking up some project in the town.
He disclosed that the concept of transplantation of trees had been adopted long time back by the Delhi administration during the construction of metro there.
He said in the first phase of the construction of the metro, the issue was raised that around 12,000 trees would have to be chopped off to clear the path for construction, which was a big environmental loss.
He said the forest department there decided to experiment with the transplantation of trees. He revealed that after the research conducted by the forest department, it was found that some of the species could be up transplanted and would survive.
He said that about five thousand trees were transplanted out of the eight thousand trees cut on that occasion.