Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation ditches the more accurate GPS system for manual counting for tree census, as it finds it unaffordable
The project of tree census using Global Positioning System (GPS) system in Navi Mumbai has been scrapped by Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) after it found the cost of the project too expensive. The corporation will now invite NGOs to carry out the census manually.
Speaking to Sunday MiD DAY, an official of the horticulture department of NMMC, on condition of anonymity, admits, “Had we used the GPS system for tree census, we could have got accurate figures and scientific data of trees in our jurisdiction. In addition, we could have also obtained area-wise information of all different trees.”
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“However, the cost of the census using the GPS system comes up to around Rs 3.5 crore, which was found to be unaffordable. So we have now decided to carry out the tree census manually with the help of NGOs in the city, which will cost not more than Rs 30 lakhs,” said the official.
Incidentally, just two months ago, the corporation had started carrying out feasibility study for the application of GPS system in order to obtain advanced details of trees in its jurisdiction.
According to the corporation, the manual process of counting and compilation of data is expected to take six months before it is formally published. “We are going to allot tree census work to NGOs in the city. The census is likely to take at least six months as we have to count trees across Navi Mumbai city that fall under our jurisdiction. Also, we will have to count trees on the forest land,” said Suresh Patil, deputy municipal commissioner, NMMC.u00a0
Did you know?
Authorities are supposed to keep details of number and type of species of trees in their jurisdiction by carrying out regular census of trees every five years u00a0
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