Kamruzzaman Bablu :The City Corporations are responsible to remove the uprooted, the skewed and the dead trees from the streets. But the two Dhaka City Corporations have no separate arrangements of doing this work. As a result, there remains chance of road accidents during storm.In the last week of March, a branch of a big old tree fell on a rickshaw of which National Film Award winning filmmaker Khalid Mahmood Mithu was a passenger in Dhanmondi Residential Area. Nearby people took him to the Ganoshasthaya Nagar Hospital where the doctors declared him dead on arrival. It was really a pathetic death.Experts opine, “Although roads and streets look green because of trees, most of the trees are actually hollow from inside, having fear of falling or crashing in the Nor’wester, or even in gust.”Environmental activists opined that road digging by the WASA, T&T, and TITAS might have weakened the roots of those trees. Apart from this, roadside trees could not spread their roots due to footpath construction and reshaping. On Sunday, many trees were found uprooted or branches thereof fell on roads on the Baily Road, the Eskaton Road and the Dhaka University area although there was no news of casualty.The estate departments of the both City Corporations can remove any dead trees if considered harmful or risky to city dwellers. In that case, locals have to inform it to the Estate Department of the City Corporation. After receipt of information, it will be placed in a committee consisting of members from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the DC Office and the related organizations for permission to cut the harmful trees, as the City Corporation alone cannot take any decision like it. “Yet, we are careful about the city residents’ security.” said Khalid Ahmed, the Chief Estate Officer of the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC). He said, the two City Corporations do not have actual statistics how much trees the city has. There is no specific information about who planted the trees and when? Architect Iqbal Habib said, “As the City Corporations give permission to dig the roads, they should take the responsibility of taking care of the trees.” They should also inspect and remove the risky trees. According to him, there could be a list of trees on city roads with regular updates. Dr Tarik Bin Yousuf, Superintendent Engineer of the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) also echoed the same. “It is not enough to plant trees. There must be initiatives to look after those regularly,” he concluded.
