Broken tiffin boxes and smashed spoons — it was the death of a thousand dreams as a 70 feet tall heritage tree, protected by the Chandigarh administration, claimed an innocent young life and injured several others at a school on Friday. However, the UT administration whose department was protecting the ‘heritage tree’ trained guns at the school authorities, saying that it was situated in a private property.
The administration also said they never got a request from the school citing that the tree was posing danger to life and property. When contacted Chandigarh Adviser Dharam Pal he said, “The tree was on private property. Anything going wrong within the premises of a private property is their responsibility. They need to inform us whether they need to get the branches trimmed or if the tree needs to be pulled down. I checked with my departments concerned and no such request had come.”
When asked if responsibility has been fixed, he said that a committee had been constituted by the deputy commissioner that will conduct a magisterial inquiry into the matter.
After the loss of life, the administration also ordered an inspection of all trees, especially in schools, something that should have been done earlier and as a routine exercise.
RK Garg an activist said “The officials should move out of their AC rooms and start conducting a check.” He asked if the administration’s job finishes after declaring a tree ‘heritage’.
“Does declaring it heritage absolve the administration of its responsibility towards the safety of people and children? In most schools, such tall trees can be located. There is need for a high-level inquiry by an officer of the MHA and there is a need to review the policy on heritage trees. It is the responsibility of the administration to ensure safety of the people and to make sure such unfortunate deaths do not take place in future. A survey of all dangerous trees need to be carried out and replaced with new saplings,” Garg said. Ajay Jagga, member of Chandigarh Heritage Committee said that there is an emergent need to conduct a technical audit of all trees, especially ones in school campuses.
“The audit should be conducted in a time bound manner. It should also be made mandatory for all institutions to get this conducted, within one month, and it should be made a regular feature,” Jagga said.
School too should have warned its students
The least school authorities could have done was warning its students not to sit under trees that are diseased, old or perilous. Until the administration wakes up from its slumber, a board could have been installed near such trees by institutions, citing that these were dangerous and advising to not sit under them.
MPS Chawla, a hotelier and president of Industrial Association, stated that there must be dining halls in schools where at different intervals students may be asked to have their meal.
Even a small board citing that the tree is risky could have done and forewarned the students from sitting under the tree,” he said.
Committee formed as usual, says AAP
AAP Chandigarh president, Prem Garg, blamed the administration for casual upkeep of trees in the city. He said, “Now as usual an enquiry committee will be formed, which will recommend cutting of few thousand healthy trees, as they may pose danger, instead of identifying termite-ridden trees.
Chandigarh has three departments: horticulture wing of the administration, the municipal corporation, and a forest department. Still, all three departments have failed to protect or take care of a hundred plus heritage trees.”
He added, “Had an annual inspection of these heritage trees been conducted, today’s tragedy could have been avoided. It’s the duty of administration to protect heritage trees of the city. Every year, lakhs are spent on purchase of termite treatment insecticides but trees are still seen dying due to termite or negligent maintenance, for which the concerned officials should be held responsible. Just see how the termite had been damaging this tree for so many years, but none in any of the horticulture departments cared to check even once, resulting in the loss of the life of a girl.”
FRI, Dehradun, had given warnings
Rahul Mahajan, a horticulturist, while speaking to The Indian Express, said that the departments did absolutely nothing despite being forewarned by the Forest Research Institute.
“The were warned by the Forest Research Institute four years ago and they did nothing in these four years. FRI had clearly specified that unscientific pruning, over-concretisation and fungus or termite laden trees are causing the death of threes. They never conducted any inspection of such trees or audit,” Mahajan said.
He added, “If swift action isn’t taken, more trees will fall in coming days because many are dead inside and are just ready to come down. Many trees are dying because of the pavers as well.”
Orders issued for child safety audit
Nitika Pawar, Secretary, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development, Chandigarh Administration, issued directions to the chairperson of Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights to conduct child safety audit of all the schools across UT.
To carry out the audit, a team comprising various departments such as social welfare, health, engineering, education, municipal corporation, forest, district child protection unit and the police is to be constituted to ensure that the students are provided with a conducive and safe environment.
The said committee will further give its suggestions/ recommendations to the Department of Social Welfare Woman and Child Development, Chandigarh and to the respective schools to take corrective measures.
Also, a committee of officials from the MC, forest department, horticulture wing has been constituted to visit the schools and other education institutions and inspect the trees in and around the premises to avoid any such incident in the future.