Delhi's bad relationship with trees

The storm last week tells us something is rotten in this take-and-take one

Delhi’s trees should demand an out-of-court settlement from Dilliwallahs.

We want their shade, especially in the summer heat when we park our cars underneath so that our automobiles do not turn into moving furnaces.  But we don’t care much about our trees, and when they fall on us, crushing us or our vehicles, we are thoroughly surprised. “But you were only meant to give me shade, what do you want in return?”

Well, the ground beneath my feet, say trees.    

Also, the right to not be chopped in a lop-sided manner.

All good stories are illustrated by that microcosm: one’s own locality or neighbourhood. North Delhi is one of the leafiest parts of Delhi, with massive trees, but people will not leave them alone. In the part where I live – termed pocket for some reason I have yet to discover -- trees are pruned on an annual basis, sometimes even bi-annually. Neighbours say this is to get rid of mosquitoes and insects and to prevent “branches from getting into people’s windows”. I have never seen a branch, or even a twig, enter anyone’s house, uninvited.

Yet, every year, year after year, two men with axes appear as if by magic, sit on these trees and chop mercilessly. They apply no science, a beautiful ‘Kachnar’ tree which breaks into purple prose opposite my house now tilts dangerously because it has been axed from just one side, my fear that it will fall has as much to do with my safety as that it is the last standing soldier in a lane that was lined with ‘Kachnars’ till five years back -- and will be bereft of them, if it does.  

A protest to the RWA (residents’ welfare association) that a beautiful, green neighbourhood was being systematically destroyed fell on deaf ears.

A big reason for axing trees is, of course, human greed. Most residents in Delhi build ‘unauthorized’ balconies, or extensions to their house, and trees, or parts of trees, must make way for those.

The concretising of roads is another contributor to their acute distress. Most roads, especially lanes inside colonies, are transforming from bitumen to concrete ones, which by itself should be a good thing for the environment. But tree bases are also being concretised. The ‘labour’ and contractor doing this transformation have no idea, or instructions, to leave the requisite space to allow tree roots to breathe and spread.

I wonder what it will take, another storm with lives lost, and power supply cut, to make the horticulture department of the MCD work closely with other departments and RWAs to save Delhi’s magnificent green cover, and lives?