Journalism of Courage
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC),which has embarked upon counting the trees in the city last year,has decided to go for an extension of the project at least by another one year. The ‘quizzical nature’ of some property owners,who do not let the staff count the trees in their property before the staffs furnish their identity details and answer their questions,is causing delay in the census.
This has forced the garden department to seek permission from the PMC commissioner to extend the duration of the project. So far,the counting work has been completed in the areas including Aundh,Baner and Balewadi,which fall under the Aundh ward office of PMC. Starting with Yerawada next,the census will be carried out in a ward-wise manner.
Ashok Ghorpade,an official of PMC’s Garden Department said,”It is true that people ask a number of questions to the staff and check their identity before letting them do their job,which consumes more time than usual.”
“We are going to seek an extension of one year from the civic commissioner,” he added.
There is a team of 40 employees,which include taxonomists and botanists,involved in the task of tree-census. “We are not just noting down the number of trees,but also taking into consideration its scientific name,height,approximate age,the circumference of the tree-trunk,description of the property,its survey number,etc. Also we are capturing images of trees in each property,” Jadhav said. The PMC had carried out a tree-census between 1997-98,according to which there were 32.88 lakh trees in the city. Now,the civic body will be collecting data for the next five years.
