Roads devoid of trees always invoke deep thoughts among readers of this blog. But, how serious is this issue taken by the common man?To find out, I did a small survey among people who watch such roads all day for 365 days of the year. I asked a few shops located on such roads regarding this. I chose Vijayanagar 2nd stage for the survey since it has negligible number of trees as compared to other areas within the city.
Every person I interviewed seems to have a deep concern about the lack of trees. A grocery store owner feels the city corporation should do something about this. When I asked him whether he really expected the corporation to take action, he said that he doesn't have much hope and would instead prefer planting on his own if only he had enough time. He was even ready to pay a nominal amount if someone would plant the tree in front of his shop. Another hardware store owner had planted 3 trees in front of his shop but none of them survived. The reason for their death was non suitability of the soil for the planted tree. Even he was willing to pay for some trees if someone maintained them for him. He says that the trees when fully grown could provide good shade for vehicles parked in front of his shop. Some others feel that they have fulfilled their responsibility of planting trees since they come from an agricultural background where their parents have already planted a lot of trees.
To summarize the survey, I would say that most people would plant trees if only given a chance to do so in a easy and no-hassles manner. Almost everyone knows that the cities are so hot only because of the lack of trees. The only problem: Everyone thinks someone else will correct the situation.
1 comment:
Has anyone thought about what to do with saplings after they are planted? If people follow the advice and started planting saplings of sorts, thousands of them say, who will water them? Is there enough supply of water
for them as well as humans in Mysore these days? How much water thosands of these saplings will take once they are planted? What from I hear from my relatives, Mysore is experiencing difficult water situation. They say that our home which had a 24 hour water supply in my days in Mysore 40 years ago, gets fraction of that these days.
In my days in Mysore as an young boy our schools celebrated
'vana mahotsava' day. Forty years onwe see forrests are disappearing thick and fast. Just look at the boundary of Mysore in 1972 (say) and now. How much greenery was destroyed to provide thousands of houses for the growing population?
Many who are very knowledgeable environmentalists fear that
as the car hungry USA ( one may not have gas guzzlers of yore, but still USA is a country with not much of public transport to show with ever attachment to car culture) marches forward inexorably punching holes in the Ozone layer which would resemble a a sieve, the late comers to the car culture, China and India, with their near 3 billion population
(and growing) would join this march and finsh off the sieved Ozone layer. Trees do their work if humans do theirs-controlling the population growth, using resources wisely and not introducing pollutants like automobiles in numbers every day.
It is a shame that car has become such a status symbol in India. The politicians and people there have such misguided views about advancement.
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