Krishna Byre Gowda targets ‘paper plantation’ in Bengaluru
Greater Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda has criticized the civic body for failing to implement tree-planting initiatives despite budget allocations. He has mandated that agencies must now pay for the planting of ten saplings for every tree removed for development projects.
Why it matters
This highlights issues of administrative accountability and environmental conservation in rapidly urbanizing cities.
As a mandatory exercise, the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) took up the planting of one lakh trees every year, with a budget earmarked for the initiative.
However, Greater Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said that the implementation has remained only on paper over the years. He said on Monday during a meeting with officials of the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), “Every year, when the public questions the civic body, it says that it is planting trees in the city, but we cannot see them at all.”
According to the tree census data, Bengaluru has over 20 lakh trees, many of which are age-old. “If the civic body is planting one lakh trees every year, then where have those trees gone? There should have been lakhs of trees by now,” he argued.
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