Chennai least green among metros

CHENNAI: The best efforts of the forest department notwithstanding, Chennai remains the least green metro in the country, with a green cover extending to just 9.5% of its geographical area in the city limits. This is even lower in the relatively less-developed suburbs, at just 4.5%.
Among the other metros, Delhi has a green cover of 20.20 %, Bangalore 19% and Kolkata has 15%.Mumbai, the most developed of all metros, has a green cover of just 1.27% but its suburbs, with a green cover of 26.91%, make up for the shortfall. Chandigarh, the best planned city in the country, is the most green with a forest cover of 35%.
For Chennai, achieving a 33% forest cover as envisaged in the National Forest Policy 1988 will remain a dream as the deadline is 2012. State forest department officials, who have been making efforts to better the green cover through an afforestation drive, have termed this target unachievable. They have been facing a lot of stumbling blocks from acute space shortage to tree-felling in support of infrastructure expansion.
"We do not have space to plant saplings. What is left for us are private industrial lands and the roadsides of state and national highways. We plan to intensify our drive in the city's suburbs so that we can make up the shortfall in the city," Ram Mohan, assistant conservator of forests, GIS and IT, told The Times Of India.
The forest department in co-ordination with the state highways department has been planting avenue trees but simultaneously the latter is forced to cut down trees for expansion of various highways. In the case of NH45, first planned as a four-lane road and now being expanded to a six-lane stretch, the department had to fell a lot of trees.
The natural green space inside the city has also shrunk over the years. Around 400 hectares of thick forest handed over to the forest department was later declared the Guindy National Park. This has now shrunk to 270.57 hectares.
"Our city's growth is not regulated and unmindful construction has resulted in loss of greenery. Even now we do not have mandatory area marked for creation of urban forestry. What we now have is a mandatory open space reserve and that does not necessarily mean to nurture urban forest," D Narasimhan of the Centre for Floristic Research, Department of Plant Biology and Plant Bio-technology, Madras Christian College, said.
An urban forest area is not just to provide a beautiful aerial view of the city but has a key role in maintaining the environmental balance and supplying good quality oxygen.
"We have prepared a plan for private farmers with a revenue model. We will plant saplings on their shallow agricultural lands which would provide them revenue. The plans differ for small farmers and those having large farms. Similarly, talks are on with private industries and IT majors to develop their premises," Ram Mohan said.