Mumbai: On Tuesday morning, third-year law student Ankita Walawalkar went around in a tempo along with volunteer Sachin and two gardeners, picking up plants that were facing death due to the Mumbai Metro work on the Western Express Highway, and brought those to her housing society. From 9 a.m. to 12 noon, she went from her home in Goregaon till Andheri Pump House to pick up over 100 plants that were unmarked and thus not meant for replanting. These plants are being taken care of in her society and will be later re-planted in her society and her alma mater, Goregaon’s Nivara Vidyalaya, as part of their tree plantation drive in June.
“On Monday, I had gone around checking and marking the plants to adopt. But, when I returned on Tuesday, I was amazed to find many people had already picked up plants. I had gone with an idea to adopt about 500 plants, but ended up getting only around 100. I had set my eyes on bamboo plants which I thought would be nice to plant along the stormwater drain that flows through our society, but I was not very lucky,” she rues.
Another Mumbaikar, Daisy Arora, went around with her gardener in a truck to look around for 50 plants for adoption by her society.
Over 4,000 trees planted on road dividers and along road have been adopted by Mumbaikars in the last two weeks. Most of these trees were along Link Road and on the Western Express Highway between Dahisar and Andheri.
Messages on WhatsApp groups encouraged over 210 people and over 40 housing societies to undertake replanting. The groups exchange notes and update people on locations and type of plants available, and even on how labourers and transport could be arranged.
“While big plants would be replanted by the contractors, small ones were not being watered and were not likely to be saved. There were many like Sicus or Peepal, which don’t figure on top of the people’s list since they are neither flowering nor fruit-bearing. We got about 50 Sicus replanted around an open playground (termed locally as Pepsi ground) in Borivali,” says volunteer Jiten Belani.
“We would not just direct people to the locations of the trees, but also check up with adopters about their plans, as to where would they replant them or how do they intend to take care of them,” says Belani, a professional banker, who is now on a sabbatical.
“I was amazed about the number of queries and inquiries I received from people as far as the U.S. and even Karjat and Navi Mumbai. People are genuinely concerned about saving trees and this could pave the way for a green Mumbai soon,” says Subhajit Mukherjee, an environmentalist from Borivali.
The initiative, Mission Green Mumbai, was born two weeks ago when Mr. Mukherjee saw many trees being covered by Metro boards, and then approached Metro officials via local legislator Yogesh Sagar. Metro officials permitted them to take away those trees, which were not part of their replanting plan.
The WhatsApp group now intends to take up other issues like fighting for green cover of Aarey.
