A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Amjad Sayed had recently relied on a pilot project conducted by Limaye on one hectare of the Borivli national park—the only such park within urban limits—to direct Pune Municipal Corporation to use geo-tagging as a process to count trees in its urban areas.
Environmental experts said that the order would have a far reaching impact on preservation and conservation of trees and the system could soon be used in the national park too on a larger scale.
The court was hearing a PIL filed by Deepak Balakrishna against an inordinately delayed process of trees census that had led to destruction of trees. The Pune Municipal Corporation carried out a census of trees covering nearly 32 lakh trees. The HC noted that there were serious grievances by the citizens of Pune about the destruction of the green cover in the city. The last leg of the survey, covering 8 lakh trees was carried out using just photographs. The latitude and longitude of the trees were noted on paper said civic counsel Ashutosh Kumbhakoni. The corporation said the modalities employed were as required under the provisions of the Maharashtra Urban Areas (Protection and Preservation of Trees) Act, 1975.
The nearly four decade old law had not caught up with the advances in technology, the HC noticed. Justice Chandrachud thus indicated that experts must be involved to map trees too and the court sought the assistance of Limaye and the Chief Conservator of Forests. Kumbhakoni also informed the court that the civic authorities had held meetings with the forest conservator and also Jitendra Shah, a former VJTI faculty who is presently a Research Associate at the GIC Lab at IIT, Mumbai. The counsel informed the court that an effective census of trees can be carried out by utilising a process of geo-tagging which automatically records the latitude and longitude of every tree. Every individual tree gets photographed and is automatically tagged to the Global Positioning System (GPS). The approximate cost of a hand held GPS device at present varies between Rs.6,000/- to Rs.12,000/- and the technology is, therefore, cost effective.
The HC in its order last month said, "The Pune Municipal Corporation should take the lead in the State for deploying a Geographical Information System (GIS) which includes as its components geo-tagging and creation of a data base for an effective mapping and enumeration of trees. Such a system would also ensure the availability of data in respect of each individual trees as well as a systematic collection of data for the entirety of an area with a grading of trees."
Moreover, for the first time, the HC said the deployment of such a survey could be "effectively achieved with community participation from the residents of the City of Pune." The HC said the Supreme Court has emphasized the importance of environment education.
The judges said students could be roped in for the survey and the civic counsel assured the court that it would set up a panel consisting of Professor Shah, Limaye and additional municipal commissioner Rajendra Jagtap to oversee the implementation of the project.The project would be taken up in two parts in a typical urban enclave of Pune and the court said it would hear the matter next for a progress update.
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