Karachi: The contractors of the Green Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project failed to replant 800 trees as promised last year to replace the loss of as many as 7,321 trees due to construction.
The contractors of the project were supposed to replant over 800 of these trees last year in the month of July in the premises of Mazar-e-Quaid, however, they transplanted only 12 in a football ground near Mazar-e-Quaid, said a civil engineer at Quaid-e-Azam Mazar Management Board, Jawad Mughal.
Out of those 12, only four survived due to negligence since the area suffers from water shortage
The Green Line BRT will run on segregated lanes from Surjani Town to Saddar. From Nagan Chowrangi onwards, the Green Line will run on the median – the central greenbelt of the road — once lined with thousands of trees. Even at Gurumandir, the Green Line has trampled over some trees that date back to before Partition.
Out of the 7,321 trees that have been removed for the construction of the Green Line, 6,321 are Conocarpus and Eucalyptus, according to the Landscape Architecture Studio’s principal landscape architect, Komal Parvez.
She added that these trees have already been banned by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) as they harmed invasive plant species.
Former KIDCL chief financial officer Bilal Memon said that apart from the transplantation, the Green Line contractors plan to plant 19,500 new trees, estimated to cost Rs88 million.
He pointed out that thousands of small and huge trees have already been chopped off without planting new ones in order to pave way for the Green Line BRT.
According to Shams, the jungle of concrete buildings absorbs the heat from the sun and enhances the temperature by at least five to seven degrees when they release that heat. The process is known as ‘urban heat island’.
KIDCL’s chief engineer pointed out that apart from Mazar-e-Quaid, 77 trees were transplanted in a school near Anda Mor in North Karachi. Responding to the situation, District Municipal Corporation Central chairman Rehan Hashmi said he will pursue litigation against the KIDCL’s environmental plunder.
