After this number was highlighted in BSRP’s environment impact assessment report, the citizens reached out to the Forest Department of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) demanding a comprehensive and scientific feasibility study and alternative project analyses.
According to Sarina Sikkaligar, Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF), BBMP, citizens have recently filed many such complaints in the recent past, and the civic agency has taken up some of the cases and registered FIRs against the offenders. She also informed BM that no permission has been issued by the department to any shop owner in the city to axe trees or trim the branches.
If the corporation’s latest report on recent tree transplantation is anything to go by, not much has changed since then. To make matters worse, the transplantation process today has a more abysmal success rate of 15%.