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Green activists see hope in Bombay High Court's direction to civic body

Currently, the civic body's tree authority has 14 corporators and four nominated expert members.

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Currently, BMC’s tree authority has 14 corporators, 4 nominated experts
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Environmentalists say that the Bombay High Court asking the BMC to include more experts in the tree authority could be a shot in the arm of protecting the city's green cover.

Currently, the civic body's tree authority has 14 corporators and four nominated expert members. Activist Zoru Bhatena, who has been fighting a legal battle to stop indiscriminate chopping of trees and random granting of permissions by the BMC said that activists want the civic body to follow the high court order of April 2018.

"As per the condition laid down by the high court in its order, the BMC should have an equal number of nominated experts and members as corporators in the tree authority. However, the BMC did not pay heed to it and went ahead and appointed just four experts," he pointed out.

According to Bhatena, corporators do not have any knowledge about trees and they simply pass proposals for removal of trees or for transplantations without thinking much about it and this is precisely why activists have been seeking an equal number of expert members so that they have a strong say to stop such proposals from being cleared by the civic body.

Green activists also objected to the fact that the BMC, in its selection procedure for nominated expert members, had put a condition that these experts should be living within the limits of the city's municipality. This is why several experts from Thane, Navi Mumbai, and other Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) areas were not made a part of the tree authority.

"The BMC's tree authority is nothing but a charade as neither do their tree officers have any expertise about tree management nor does any corporator, who is a member, care about protecting trees. Hence, the only way to save the green cover is to have well-trained and knowledgeable experts who can add more teeth to this authority and help save the city's trees wherever required," said another activist.

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