The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation has proposed planting one lakh bamboo trees around Morbe Dam in Khalapur taluka, creating a large plantation belt on land owned by the civic body. The proposal, estimated at Rs 2.75 crore, will be placed before the corporation’s general body for consideration.
Morbe Dam is owned by the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation and supplies water to the city. A report by the civic tree authority identified extensive land around the reservoir that could be made available for plantation. The administration subsequently examined which types of trees would be suitable for the site before deciding to focus on bamboo.
The proposal forms part of the wider tree-plantation target announced by the Maharashtra government. The state has set an objective of planting 300 crore trees across Maharashtra over the coming years, with municipal corporations, municipalities, zilla parishads and gram panchayats expected to contribute to the effort.
For Navi Mumbai, the civic administration has begun searching for locations that can be used for plantation during the coming year. The hill ranges on the eastern side of the city have been identified as suitable areas, while officials are also examining whether additional sites can be made available. The Morbe Dam property would provide a larger, municipally controlled site outside the core urban area.
Municipal Commissioner Dr Kailash Shinde took the decision to plan the planting of one lakh bamboo trees in the Morbe Dam area after the site assessment and tree-authority report. The decision is currently at the proposal stage. The general body’s consideration will be an important step before the plan can move towards implementation.
The scale of the plan places the dam’s surrounding land at the centre of Navi Mumbai’s expanding environmental programme. Unlike roadside planting, a plantation around a reservoir involves a large contiguous area under public ownership and has to be linked to the management of the dam property. The available report, however, does not specify the plantation schedule, the exact area to be covered, the bamboo varieties proposed, the source of saplings, or the arrangements for irrigation and maintenance.
The proposal also leaves open questions about how the plantation will be monitored after planting. The supplied report does not state whether the one lakh trees will be counted as surviving plants over time or whether the municipal corporation has prepared a maintenance and replacement plan. These details are not part of the proposal information currently available.
The immediate next step is the presentation of the detailed proposal before the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation’s general body. Any decision on funding, implementation and the plantation timetable will follow that process.
