Trees uprooted, branches falling: Over 100 incidents since monsoon hit Mumbai

Between June 9 and 10, when the monsoon hit Mumbai, 51 such incidents were reported as rains lashed the city. The data shows out of the total incidents reported, 58 were in the western suburbs, and 24 each in the eastern suburbs and island city.

Every year, ahead of the monsoon, the BMC carries out pruning of trees in Mumbai as a precautionary measure, so that heavy branches don’t fall during storms or gusty winds. This year, the BMC had set a target of pruning 1.11 lakh trees between April and June.

Civic officials attributed the ongoing digging in Mumbai related to infrastructure projects like road widening, concretisation and laying of sewage lines as a major contributing factor for incidents of uprooting of trees in Mumbai.

“Over the past few years, several roads have been dug up for infrastructure projects, which has badly affected the basins of most trees. In such a situation, there are high chances of uprooting of trees as the roots become loose, and during rain leaves and branches also becomes heavy as they soak water,” a civic official said.

The official added that many of the trees that were uprooted were in the periphery of private buildings and maintained that several residential societies don’t carry out annual pruning of trees, posing a threat to residents living there. “Most incidents that have been recorded are of branches falling and incidents where full-grown trees were uprooted are not very high,” the official said.

Stalin D, environmentalist and director of NGO Vanashakti, told The Indian Express that the reason behind such incidents is concretisation of the tree basins, which prevents the roots to grow. “This kind of incidents happen only in Mumbai because no other city concretises the tree basins. As a result the tree is only left with 2 square metres of soil and the base becomes loose. Due to this, the trees miss out on soil moisture and become dehydrated from inside as the roots can’t grow further. These factors cause them to lose moisture and due to unavailability of water inside them the trees lose equilibrium and collapse at the first blow of rains,” Stalin said.

“We had approached the National Green Tribunal in 2015, following which the court had ordered BMC to implement remedial measures but as of now nothing has been implemented on the ground. As a damage control measure they are just pruning the branches, which is of no use because by removing a few branches you can’t restore balance in a tree,” he said.

In a report published on March 26, The Indian Express had pointed out that between 2018 and 2023, 21,028 trees were cut by the civic authorities to make way for several infrastructure projects. Furthermore, the report also highlighted that only 22% of the trees that are transplanted in Mumbai survive.

Mumbai also has a very low tree-human ratio; at present there are 29.75 lakh trees in Mumbai and going by the current estimated population of 1.29 crore, there is only one tree for four people, while an Indian Institute of Science report published in 2014 highlighted that the ideal human-to-tree ratio should be seven trees for every person.