I’ve never experienced a Cyclone before, but when I was in Chennai on a business trip, one I will never forget, Cyclone Aila hit. Luckily, I was staying at one of the 5 Star Hotels Chennai offers the thousands of travellers everyday. My business trip concerned environmental issues, so I managed to request a longer stay in Chennai so as to assess what environmental damage the Cyclone caused.
I found out nearly 1,500 trees were uprooted during Cyclone Aila. That’s can have an unforeseen environmental impact on the entire city. I have some connections in the Indian government and was informed that Mamata Banerjee the chief of the Trinamool Congress, has issued a proposal to set up a drive for re-plantation across the entire city. She did this due to Kolkata Municipal Corporations decision to carry out a similar drive has been roadblocked.
Chennai’s Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya announced reassurance to Chennai’s residence that the plantation will happen. However, the civic body appears to be facing several challenges in areas such as high density population . Civic body officials in-charge of Parks and Squares feels that the task of planting saplings to be the issue for two reasons: first, there is opposition from the Chennai’s residence themselves. Issues with which I can not comprehend at this moment. Secondly, they state that there is inadequate space for the planting of the trees. Again, I find this confusing and incomprehensible.
The Deputy Chief Engineer for the Parks and Squares has referenced that they are truly facing resistance from the residence of the area where they were hoping to plant the trees. Apparently, the residence seem to be scared because most of those 1,500 big trees that blew over, blew over on their homes. So, the civic body officials, I have found out, have passed the buck, so to speak. They now are saying that it’s the State Forest Departments responsibility to re-plant trees across the city’s thoroughfares.
I feel, however, that most of the trees that blew over, uprooted as it were, during the Cyclone is because of improper pruning. So, my task now is to help the State Forest Department with educating Chennai’s residence about proper maintenance of city trees and the necessity to plant proper trees and plant them now, or otherwise it will be an environmental loss for the residence of Chennai.