A city’s green cover is its priceless asset. Mega cities around the world — particularly those rated as the most livable — recognise the importance of trees and greenery in the urban design and planning, as they add to the aesthetics and beauty of the cityscape, and contribute immensely to a relaxed and healthy ambience.
It seems Indian towns and cities are late starters in this area. Large living spaces — lush gardens and parks and trees — that once abounded residential areas are being replaced by hi-rises, multiplexes, and gigantic shopping malls. Urban development is most often taking place at the cost of vital green spaces. The verdant haven — long celebrated in our scriptures — is diminishing with each passing generation, and we are hurtling towards a tree-less urban life.
A long time ago, visionaries such as M Vishveshwaraya, K Sheshadri Iyer, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, and Mirza Ismail emphasised the importance of trees, parks and green recreational spaces beyond their visual contribution in a cityscape. But in our hurry to “modernise” through rapid economic growth, urban aesthetics and environmental upkeep and enhancement are being sidelined.
There is widespread assault on India’s valuable old trees and strings of flowering bushes, grassy patches and roadside greenery.
At the same time a series of callous green cover activities are unfolding in the public domain on a regular and routine basis. Lakes and water-bodies are being “reclaimed”. Trees wither and crash due to lack of aeration and water supply to the roots, as a result of concrete pavements. For widening of roads or drains or laying of underground cables, the anchorage area of existing and long-standing trees is attacked.
Take the recent happenings in the Garden City (Bangalore). Visitors returning to the city after a long gap are finding it hard to understand what they see or don’t see: greenery and trees and spacious bungalows have disappeared or have been replaced by commercial complexes of concrete, steel and glass.
Streets are periodically littered with branches and leaves following the mayhem heaped on them by chopper-wielding state electricity gangmen clearing the way of overhead lines.
Compounding matters and ironically coinciding with the World Environment Day, Bangalore had a large scale felling of trees by governmental agencies. In Indiranagar, it was painful and distressing for old residents to see the green haven that they created falling apart before their eyes. Huge green giants lie scattered in the area’s main thoroughfares. In the 60s and 70s, early settlers had painstakingly, contributed time, effort and money, to convert the tree-less swampy area into a “veritable sustainable forest of the community” that was complete with birdsong.
The happening in Bangalore is symptomatic of the larger ailment taking hold of India’s urban bodies.
The on-going assault on the green cover has already resulted in unhealthy rise in surface temperature and other changes in climate, heightened toxic content in the air, and noise pollution. It is no surprise that incidents of stress, road rage, tense and nervous children, and other medical problems are mounting. Sparrows and other birds have long disappeared, and we are witnessing the natural abundance giving way to a plethora of pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals in the cityscape!
