A team of 25 to 30 volunteers from Vizhtenlunta Tamilar Manavar Ilaingar Peravai organisation have taken up the task of clearing Prosopis juliflora tree (‘seema karuvelam’ or ‘kattu karuva’) in Puducherry.
“This tree depletes the groundwater resource and has many harmful effects on the environment. We want to remove all these trees in Puducherry,” said Sathish Kumar of Vizhtenlunta Tamilar Manavar Ilaingar Peravai organisation.
In the past three weeks, they have removed trees spread across 40 to 50 acres in three different areas. “We have cleared the seema karuvelam trees in Panayadikuppam, Sendrampalayam and Thengaithittu harbour,” he said.
He added that they approached the Chief Minister twice to apprise him of this issue but could not meet him. “Till the government decides to take up this issue and clear all these trees we will continue our work every weekend,” Mr.Kumar said.
At least 15 students have also volunteered for this work.
Mr. Kumar said that they had also approached the forest department to provide JCB. “But, they have not responded to us so far. We are spending money from our pockets to deploy JCB for this work. Once we remove the trees, we are planning to plant saplings across the area,” he said.
