Fallen trees block traffic for third day

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Environmentalists and tree lovers in the city are concerned over the poor measures taken by the city corporation in safeguarding the avenue trees particularly when northeast monsoon is round the corner.

“The city corporation struggles to clear uprooted trees as it lacks adequate staff and machineries. Traffic along interior roads was disrupted for the third consecutive day on Saturday,” Mr R Govindaraj, joint general secretary, Exnora International, said.

Meanwhile, the state forest department is gearing up to plant around 22,000 saplings in Chennai across all the 15 zones of the corporation.

The month of October is usually chosen for planting trees as the survival rate of saplings is high, forest department sources said.

According to Mr D. Narashiman, associate professor, Madras Christian College, the corporation authorities had failed to safeguard trees planted a few years back.

“There is no system of pruning, during which the diseased, non-productive portions of the tree are removed to improve the longevity of trees.

It has been a very long time since significance was given to tree biodiversity and the local plant species should be considered for planting in the city,” the professor added.

However, a corporation official said pruning was being carried out on a regular basis across localities based on a periodic schedule.

Tree squads have been formed and all executive engineers are in touch with assistant traffic police commissioners.

Besides, the corporation would soon be acquiring more machineries to clear the uprooted trees, a senior corporation official said.

Saplings of Pungai, Poovarasu, Mathi, Vembu and Naval are selected for the plantation programmes in Chennai, corporation sources added.

Parking lot proposals gathering dust

The failure of Chennai corporation to provide adequate parking space in city continues to haunt shoppers and motorists plying to T. Nagar, Parry’s corner and Pursawalkam.

The situation is all set to become worse as pooja festival sale gains momentum by next week. The multi-level parking proposals made by the city corporation four years ago continue to be on paper despite growing vehicle population.

While the facility proposed in Broadway is yet to start, the other proposal on Greams road is progressing at snail’s pace.

“Buy one take one, assured free gifts on purchase, buy now and pay later in easy monthly installments will be the regular offers to woo customers but they are find it difficult to park their vehicles in T Nagar” rued Mr Salim Mohammad, who owns a footwear outlet in T Nagar.

When contacted, a corporation official said the multi-level parking lot coming up at Wallace Gardens was estimated to cost over rs 30 crore.

The facility upon completion will ease traffic chaos on Greams road that occur due to haphazard parking and the lot can accommodate up to 200 cars and 500 two-wheelers. The project is a joint venture and is taken up on design, built, operate and transfer mode.