Trees planted, but what about care?

KOLKATA: The civic body will now arrange plantation drives and also ensure the aftercare of the saplings to be planted.
A little over 100 men engaged in sweeping of roads under the 100-day work scheme will be asked to plant a lakh saplings across the city over the next two months. These men will also be responsible for looking after these saplings once these are planted.Launching a special plantation drive at Rabindra Sarobar on Thursday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had stressed on speedy and scientific plantation drive across Bengal, including Kolkata.
The decision to engage people from the 100-day work project was taken by the civic authorities since the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) parks department lacks gardeners to take care of saplings. "We have asked these men to take part in the plantation drive and to look after the saplings to be planted all over the city," said MMiC Debasis Kumar on Thursday. A section of the KMC parks department officials, however, expressed doubt over the fate of the plantation drive undertaken by the civic authorities.
Records in the KMC parks department reveal that plantation drives over the past three years suffered a great deal due to lack of monitoring by the department staff. "If you go by records, we had planted a lakh saplings last year, too. But we managed to save only 30% of the saplings. We could not look after these saplings with our skeletal manpower. We apprehend that this year, too, the plantation drive would suffer due to same problem," a KMC parks department official said.
The officials pointed at the saplings planted by Banerjee herself on Southern Avenue near Rabindra Sarobar one and a half years ago. Of the five saplings planted, three could not grow for want of care and monitoring.
Though it may sound strange, the KMC parks department does not have a single horticulturist to supervise the plantation drive or to suggest ways for the after care of the saplings. The civic body had Ranjit Samanta, the only horticulturist who had got several extensions after his retirement, five years ago. But mayor Sovan Chatterjee recently decided not to give further extension to Samanta.
"It is essential that we engage a horticulturist to look after a plantation drive. Right now we have no horticulturist to look after plantation drive," said a KMC parks department official.
The much hyped plantation programme undertaken jointly by the KMC and the state forest department on Thursday had a basic flaw which was overlooked even by senior officials of the state and KMC officials. The small place adjacent to Safari Park beside Rabindra Sarobar Lake was chosen for Thursday's plantation drive was too small for accommodating eight bakul and neem trees. But nobody could explain it to the chief minister when she planted those trees at a ceremony to mark beginning of forest week.
"The place where the CM planted eight Bakul and neem saplings is fit to accommodate only one. Now we need to uproot all saplings except one," said a KMC official.