Fall in price of firewood, inadequate availability of earth movers and also labourers among other things seem to impact the uprooting of seemai karuvelam (Prosopis juliflora) in the district.
Sources in the district administration say that the various departments in the district - Public Works Department, Rural Development, Town Panchayat, HR&CE, Highways and local bodies - have begun uprooting the trees.
This was after Collector T.N. Hariharan had convened an inter-department meeting in the district on February 7 and thereafter on 14.
A consequence of the meeting was that a high-level committee was formed comprising officials from the Revenue, Forest and Rural Development departments.
Thereafter, similar committees were formed at taluk/block levels to oversee the removal of the trees - both on government and private (patta) lands.
As on date, the Rural Development alone had estimated that the invasive tree species was spread over 3,424 acre in the 12 taluk/blocks and of those it had removed the trees on 654 acre.
Sources in the Water Resource Organisation of the PWD say they too have been identifying the extent of the tree on river course and tanks.
In Noyyal, for example, the Department has estimated that the tree is spread over 500 acre, including the tanks that come under the Noyyal basin.
The WRO has made similar assessments in Aliyar and Parambikulam areas. The departments are engaging workers and earth movers to uproot the trees, but are unable to progress at the pace they desire.
Requesting anonymity, the officials say that money to hire the earth movers is the problem because the State Government has not allocated fund. With the limited resources the departments have, it is difficult to carry out the uprooting, an unplanned expenditure.
Their efforts to part-finance the operation with selling the cut wood has also taken a hit as the price of wood has come down drastically from ₹. 4,000 to ₹ 500 a tonne, thanks to massive uprooting operation across the State, says an officer.
His department has estimated that it costs around ₹ 12,000-16,000 to uproot the tree on an acre with medium density as the earth movers will have to run for 16 hours - at eights hours a day.
The officials say that unless the government directs its energy and resources, the operation will remain an eyewash, as they will have to work for three continuous years to completely eliminate it from Tamil Nadu.
Reserved site
Coimbatore Corporation removed encroachment and also seemai karuvelam (prosopis juliflora) on a reserved site in Periya Thottam Colony, Veerakeralam, in Ward 19.
A release said while inspecting the site, senior officials ordered the trees to be removed and the Corporation did so on the site that measures 61 cents.
