Green Garland to bring greenery back to Bengaluru
Bengaluru: The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is resuming the Green Garland project that will see one crore saplings being planted across the city.
Launched in 2010-11 with a three-year deadline, the project was stopped owing to a lack of funds. Only 28 lakh saplings could be planted.
R Gopinath, Deputy Conservator of Forests, BDA, told DH that the agency’s commissioner had approved resuming the project so as to plant the remaining 72% of the saplings.
Rs 100 crore was allocated for the project but the cost has now escalated to Rs 140 crore as the prices of saplings have gone up, another senior official in the BDA said.
65K saplings in KG Layout
Besides the Green Garland project, the BDA will plant another 65,000 saplings in KG Layout, the housing colony it developed in southwestern Bengaluru. Officials are preparing for calling tenders for digging, planting, weeding and maintenance of the saplings for three years.
“We have identified various kinds of saplings. As of now, we will be planting the saplings on the lakebed and vacant lands, in the park and the buffer zones besides other areas, barring the roads. The plantation will be taken up before site allottees start building their homes,” Gopinath added.
The decision to plant 65,000 saplings is aimed at compensating the nearly 1 lakh trees that were cut down during the formation of KG Layout. “The BDA wanted to go for the 1:7 ratio, planting seven trees per head,” Gopinath said. “But we have now decided to keep pace with Bengaluru’s vehicle population. For example, if 10 lakh vehicles are registered in a year, we need to plant as many saplings.”