Koregaon Park tree transplant drive fails: 45 of 109 trees dead, activists allege ages were cut on paper

Pune: Koregaon Park, known for its dense greenery, shaded roads and cool weather, is fast losing its character. Once called the green lung of Pune, the area is now said to be turning into a graveyard of old trees. The alleged cause is a botched tree transplantation drive by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), carried out for infrastructure work.

According to ground reports and local environmental activists, PMC claimed about 18 months ago to have safely relocated 109 trees during a major road-widening project in Koregaon Park Annexe. At least 45 of them have dried up and died.

More shocking, it is said, is that many decades-old trees were never moved to a new site at all. Their roots were cut and the stumps were left standing where they were, so that they would die on their own.

Under the Maharashtra tree law, trees aged 50 years or more get special protection as "heritage trees". Cutting or removing such a tree needs stricter approval, attracts a higher penalty and requires compensatory planting.

Environmental activists allege that to avoid these strict rules, municipal officials keep manipulating the official tree count and project files.

The biggest evidence of this in Koregaon Park is said to be two huge, well-known rubber trees. PMC's official file recorded them as only 20 to 22 years old. But old residents of the area and people who know trees say they had stood there for more than half a century.

An environmental researcher said: "By reducing the age of the trees on paper from 50 years to 20, PMC effectively took away their heritage status. This let orders to fell the trees go through quickly, without much scrutiny and without accountability."

The matter dates to April 2025, when the corporation began widening a road in Koregaon Park between a well-known farm and a five-star hotel. Initially, 193 trees in all were considered obstacles to the project. After an official review, PMC's Tree Authority permitted 108 trees to be felled outright and 85 to be scientifically transplanted.

Local residents and environmental activists say this is a deliberate cover-up by the civic administration, meant to understate the age and environmental value of the felled trees. The two huge rubber trees are among those that have died. Old residents say the trees were not less than 50 years old and had a full, dense canopy before the project began. According to the activists, showing a lower age and size reduced public anger and also cut the compensatory measures.

Bajirao Shinde, a resident of Sadhu Vaswani Chowk, expressed anger at what he called PMC's gross negligence. He said: "In the name of transplantation, big branches and dense canopies were cut off and entire large trees were left as mere stumps. There is no sign of life in these trees. Root-balls were prepared for many trees near a well-known shopping mall, tall buildings and the offices of a large finance company, but they were never moved. They were left standing in the soil to dry up and die."

Shinde also named the places where the drive went wrong. He said: "Near a large commercial building, only five or six trees were shifted a few metres away, and today barely one or two of them show signs of life."

Anger over tree felling is no longer confined to Koregaon Park. Citizens of Kothrud, Bhosalenagar and Somwar Peth are also speaking out openly against tree felling for various road and infrastructure projects. Citizens allege that PMC makes false promises of transplantation to get approvals, and that after the trees are uprooted there is neither follow-up nor care.

Local resident Manoj Rao said the corporation has no system at all to check whether uprooted trees survived. According to him, "Transplantation has become an easy legal excuse for felling trees, with no responsibility taken for whether the trees stay alive."

A senior PMC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended the corporation's action. The official claimed that more than the necessary effort was made to save trees. The official said: "We took more care than the approval required. Instead of felling all 108 trees approved for felling, we cut only 38 and tried to transplant 109 trees, some of which were meant to be felled outright. But at least 45 of the 109 transplanted trees have died."

Asked why nearly half the trees died, the official blamed natural causes. The official said: "Even when done scientifically, tree transplantation is never 100 per cent successful. Water was given regularly, but because of differences in root structure and environmental factors, some trees could not adapt to the new site and could not grow."

With Pune's green cover shrinking fast, citizens and environmental groups are preparing to demand an independent audit of all tree transplantation projects carried out by PMC in the past three years.

Ram Sinha, a Kothrud resident, said: "PMC carries out transplantation in very poor conditions and without proper knowledge, which ends up killing these trees." Local resident Manoj Jaiswal said: "While carrying out development work in the city, the corporation should give top priority to saving the existing green cover and protecting our environment."