B D NarayankarIMAGINE RIDING on a two-wheeler and ambling along a contaminated storm water canal. You will first curse yourself for having taken this route. You will be greeted with an offensive smell and wayside filth strewn all over. By the time you reach home, you will be basking for oxygen. The scenario will be opposite, if you had manicured fruit trees and medicinal herbs planted all along the canal. At the end of the journey, you would have breathed in tons of oxygen making you feel refurbished. That’s exactly what Kolkata municipal corporation (KMC) plans to do for its citizens.
The municipality, under its ADB-funded Kolkata environment improvement project (KEIP), will build green belts that will run along three key storm water canals, covering a distance of 41 km.
The three channels are - the Tollygunge-Panchannai canal that sends sewer water from Jadavpur, Santoshpur, Dhakuria and Mukundapur to the Chowbagha pumping station and finally flushes it out into the Bidyadhari; the Churial canal, which is the only canal in Kolkata that flows from east to west from Joka to the Hooghly, and Monikhali or Begor canal beyond Behala.
KEIP officials are in touch with the state forest department to select the right kind of fruit trees, medicinal plants and other eco-friendly shady trees that will be suitable for such a drive. Forest officials are excited over this unique project. Unlike other projects where lot of focus is on landscaping and ornamental planting, KEIP contemplates on raising fruit trees and other medicinal plants.
“We are very happy to help KEIP because it is only through such greening projects that we will be able to counter pollution,” said Nilanjan, Mullick, deputy conservator of forests, urban recreational forestry.
As the success of the ambitious project will depend on a number of environmental factors, KMC has roped in horticulture experts to handle the nitty-gritty. The execution will be in the hands of a private operator and tenders have been floated for this already. The work will start next month.
The green stretches have been divided into type-one and type-two forestry zones. While the former will have fruit trees and medicinal herbs, the latter stretch will be home to bigger, shady trees. A wide range of fruits that thrive in Kolkata weather — coconut, amla, jack-fruit, mangoes like Himsagar, Amrapali and Millica, guava, lemons such as batabi, kagzi and pati — will be planted.
Popular medicinal plants like aloe vera, kalmegh, sarpagandha and aswagandha have been short listed.
“What sets this project apart from other green drives is the fact that fruits will be planted. This will make the project self-sustaining, at least to an extent. We have chosen fringe areas because it is difficult to get land in the city proper. While in most places the width of the green verge will be five metres, in some places it will be three meters, as we have to ensure smooth traffic flow as well,” said Debashish Guha, administrative officer of KEIP.
As there is fear of destroying the green verge, the KEIP has imposed a condition that the executor will have to maintain the entire belt till 2010. Watering and manuring the plants, administering medicines, pruning and cleaning of weeds and, above all, protecting the trees from encroachers will be the responsibility of the executor.
Other municipalities, especially Bangalore civic body, should take a cue out of it and do something on similar lines.
Source: Meri News
No comments:
Post a Comment