According to data revealed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), over 100 incidences of trees being uprooted or branches falling had been reported in the city within two weeks of the onset of monsoon in Mumbai.
Between June 9 and June 22, the city council received 106 complaints about trees collapse incident as a result of rain. In addition, 24 such instances were reported on June 21-22.
On the day of the monsoon arrival, on June 9, 51 similar incidences were reported as the rain battered the city. According to the data, 58 of the overall events that were reported occurred in the western suburbs, and 24 occurred in each of the eastern and island city suburbs.
The civic body prunes trees in the city prior to the monsoon each year as a preventive measure to ensure no mishap takes places due to falling of branches during storms or strong winds in Mumbai rains. The BMC had set a goal for itself this year to prune 1.11 lakh trees between April and June.
Authorities in charge of the city of Mumbai have identified a major contributing reason to the uprooting of trees in the city: the continuous excavation taking place there for infrastructure projects including sewage line laying, road widening and concretization.
The majority of trees' basins have been severely impacted by the recent road excavations for infrastructure work, said a municipal official. He further added that in this kind of environment, trees are more likely to be uprooted because their roots become loosened and they absorb water in the leaves and branches, which also become heavy during rainy seasons.
The official went on to say that many of the uprooted trees were near private structures and that there are a number of residential societies that neglect to prune trees in the society premises before monsoon arrives every year, which puts the residents' safety at risk. The official said that there are not many instances when fully grown trees have been uprooted; instead, the majority of incidences that have been reported include limbs falling.
To make place for various infrastructure projects, the local officials chopped down 21,028 trees between 2018 and 2023. According to several reports, in Mumbai, just 22 per cent of transplanted trees survive.
Mumbai also has an extremely low human-to-tree ratio with 29.75 lakh trees at the moment and an estimated 1.29 crore people. It is pertinent to note that there is only one tree for every four people in Mumbai. According to an Indian Institute of Science report from 2014 highlighted that the ideal human-to-tree ratio should be seven trees for every person.
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