The local Smart
City establishment seems to be seriously at work. Passing by, I happened to see
that in south TT Nagar around half a century old low-rise residential
government houses meant for the lower-level employees of the state government
are being demolished. It is a very unpleasant sight.
One can quite
imagine, with the demolitions numerous worlds have been destroyed and many of
the inmates who spent a lifetime in these buildings were forcibly removed. They
surely would have gone kicking screaming. After all, for years and perhaps
decades these constituted their worlds. Here they married, had children,
brought them up and launched them in the wide world to fend for themselves.
They had developed their roots here that had gone deep during the long decades
they spent here and uprooting them from their moorings would seem to be so
cruel. But then, as Tennyson had said “Old order changeth, yielding place to
new”, howsoever painful, a change has to come about replacing the old “order.
And this change is mostly for that much bandied word “vikas” (development),
which surely would not be of those who were removed from their hearths and
homes.
It is a
depressing sight. But in the depressing environment something stands out and
captures your attention. Numerous trees – full grown and healthy – are standing
next to the demolished homes. They seem to be there forlorn and in splendid
isolation as they are bereft of their human company. These were not the trees
that were planted by the civic bodies; these were planted, nurtured and cared
for by the inmates who peopled the neighbouring now-demolished houses. Both of
them had developed a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit and mutual
dependence. That relationship has suddenly snapped.
Perhaps, these
have been left standing because of the backlash of the earlier effort of the
administration to create a smart city at Shivaji Nagar after destroying
hundreds and thousands of trees. That iconic image of Dr. Balwapuri of Red
Cross Hospital in close embrace with fat trunk of a tree promptly comes to
mind. The proposal to build the smart city there was given up mainly due to
protests of the stakeholders of the entire neighbourhood. Only time will tell
whether the trees of the South TT Nagar are going to be as lucky as those that
escaped the axe in Shivaji Nagar. One has a hunch that they are going to meet
the same fate as meted out to those which were felled to bring up Gammon
India’s “Drishti” complex, charitably called “Central Business District”.
Perhaps, the axes and bulldozers are waiting for the necessary clearance.
I say this
because the city administrators are very ”axe-happy”. Despite the repeated
reports of the city being rapidly divested of its greenery a big swathe of land
along the Lower Lake has been cleared by felling a pretty dense assemblage of
trees. This seems to have been done under the project of conversion of Minto
Hall complex into a starred hotel and convention centre. The trees have been
sacrificed for widening the road that runs along the Lower Lake and, perhaps,
will provide access to the proposed convention centre. With two accesses for
the Minto Hall complex already available the need for widening the road seems
incomprehensible.
In any project
the trees are the first casualties. Even the area next to the approach of the
bungalow of the Mayor near Karbala quite a few trees have been felled for
reasons that are still unknown. The place was green and cool with a good, dense
undergrowth. But no, the axes wee wielded and the place looks so bare now. One
wonders at the casualness of the officialdom and its penchant for taking such
decisions that are harmful for the people.
Again, a
proposal that was presumed to be dead is being revived. The proposal for
construction of a guest house and few residences for MLAs was killed earlier
about three years ago as it involved in felling of thousands of trees in or
near the MLAs rest house complex. The protests put a stop to the project but
before that a thousand trees had already been felled. The same proposal is
being revived and the Speaker is reportedly pursuing the matter. On the last
occasion some people had pointed out that there was hardly any need for new
residences for MLAs as on bifurcation of the state a substantial number of them
have now gone away to Chhattisgarh. But none is probably prepared to pay heed
to any counter comment for the reason MLAs are the government and in the
pre-election year the administration will also want to keep them happy.
Hence, with one
project or another trees in the town are being sacrificed. None seems to think
that trees are supportive of life and wellbeing, more so in these days of heavy
air pollution and scarcity of water. Surprisingly the civic bodies that are
entrusted with the duty of creating clean and healthy spaces for people are the
worst defaulters. They seem to have sworn to divest the city of all its
greenery leaving the citizens to contend with the rise in air pollution that
fosters diseases and death as also unconscionable rise in temperature making the
once-salubrious city unlivable.
They apparently
are ignorant of the various researches that have shown how valuable a city’s
greenery is. A new research, results of which have been published in the
journal Ecological Modelling, indicates how much money trees can save for a
city. After studying 10 megacities around the world and taking into account air
pollution, storm water, building energy, and carbon emissions, the researchers
found that trees have an economic benefit of about $505 million every year.
Researchers from State University of New York College of Environmental Science
& Forestry and Parthenope University of Naples found that trees are worth
$1.2 million per square kilometer or $35 per capita.
But in India
none probably cares – more so in the states and their municipalities. In the
case of Bhopal, the local civic body and also the local government have been
unmindful of the impacts of their actions to add more cement and concrete
structures in the city. They have scarcely reacted on the repeated reports of
tumbling greenery of the city. Besides, they have been singularly unsuccessful
in taking care of what was received by them as inheritance in the shape of
natural and man-made assets from their feudal predecessors. In fact, they have
tried to destroy most of it, chasing a mirage, as it were, of development and
progress.
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