Online system for felling trees, filing objections soon

The forest department receives around 3,000 applications a year to fell around 5,000 trees in the city, most of which are on public land. Photo: K Murali Kumar

In about two months’ time, the forest department of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will have an online mechanism in place for people to apply for pruning or felling trees. It will also have a provision for filing objections.

BBMP’s Chief Conservator of Forests Brijesh Kumar told The Hindu that his office receives around 3,000 applications a year to fell around 5,000 trees in the city, most of which are on public land. He said, “The current process is full of shortcomings, which are exploited by unscrupulous elements. To fell any tree, citizens will have to submit an application to the jurisdictional tree officer. The process is essentially bilateral with no inherent transparency, no opportunity for objections and leaves scope for complaints.”

Stating that the need of the hour is to “re-engineer” the whole process, he said that with the new system, there would be transparency and opportunities for filing objections and appeals, making way for informed decision-making. There will be a gap of 15 days between submission of application and decision taking, except in emergency cases. There will be a similar gap between decision taking and implementation. The intention is to allow people to file objections before a decision is taken by the tree officers.

The BBMP, he said, is aware of the challenges of putting such a system in place since not many people would be able to access the system online. To overcome this hurdle, the civic body is in talks with the Postal Department. “People may be able to go to the nearest post office and file an application online. The printout will have to be signed by the applicant. The postal department can send it to the BBMP office. A small service charge may be levied. The talks are still in the preliminary stage.”

The option of introducing the same service in BangaloreOne centres would also be explored.

No saplings planted

Mr. Kumar informed that no saplings were planted across the city in the previous fiscal (2013-14). Bureaucratic hurdles caused a delay in obtaining the requisite permissions on time. Though funds were earmarked in the budget, only a fraction of that has been released.