Fani Afterthought: Whose City Is It Anyway?

When Sailashree Vihar was being developed, the Orissa State Housing Board spent Rs 12,000 on every tree that was planted and brick-fenced for protection there. The idea must have been to ensure a green cover for generations to come.

“All that effort has gone down the drain,” laments Sarada Prasad Naik, a retired Indian Forest Service (IFS) official and one of the oldest residents of Sailashree Vihar.

If Cyclone Fani destroyed the rich green cover that gave the city its unique identity, residents are felling trees instead of protecting the ones that Fani spared.

On Thursday morning, tension ran high in the locality after a retired technocrat resident got a fleshy mango tree adjacent to his premises felled in complete disregard of rules.
“Did you get permission from Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), the police… the forest department?” charged his neighbour, triggering a heated altercation. While it was heartening to see some opposition to the felling of the tree, there were many in the crowd who came out in support of the retired technocrat, asserting the gentleman’s right to do so – an appalling sight for any green lover.

In fact, Fani has helped blow the lid off residents’ apathy towards protecting the city’s green cover. “Sadly, no residents’ welfare organisation has come forward to plant trees even after Fani ravaged the city, leaving behind a skyline with a very prominent vacuum where some 10 lakh trees once stood,” said Subash Brahma of a city-based voluntary organisation, which espouses the cause of tree plantation. “This barren look of the city is as much an emotional issue with me as with anyone who has grown up in this city. The apathy has shamed us equally.”

A recent Facebook post by a Bhubaneswar resident shows how her neighbour in Surya Nagar chopped off a mid-sized tree when the area was being cleared of Fani’s debris.
Debasish Mohanty, a resident of Sundarpada, talked of a landowner in his locality who stuck a deal with a property dealer after Fani and made quite a fortune from his fallen trees, selling the now vacant plot to a real estate agent.

According to an India State of Forest Report (ISFR), Odisha was seen losing a whopping over 13 sqkm of tree cover every month. The figure would be much higher if we extrapolate it in the case of a fast-growing city like Bhubaneswar.

The study also revealed that while Odisha’s population is growing slowly, its forest cover is dwindling so fast that the needle of balance has tilted to the negative zone, turning the state into India’s “heat island”. Already, the heat is becoming unbearable after the cyclone, with humidity ranging between 80-95 per cent in the city.

Environmentalists are worried that 30 per cent of land in the state is showing symptoms of desertification, because of mindless deforestation.

This wanton destruction of and apathy for green cover confirms one thing. That the next cyclone might damage more property because of the uprooted trees that had so far provided cover.