kolkata a kmc drive to prune roadside trees whose flowers are just beginning to blossom has left green activists shocked and fumingin the past couple of weeks labourers engaged by kmc contractors have gone on a hacking spree axing thick branches of fullgrown trees like malabar cotton with their bright red flowers in full bloom the men use mechanized ladders to access the branches but cut them manually with an axe instead of a mechanized bladespotting a group of unsupervised labourers cutting branches sed labourers cutting branches mercilessly on ballygunge circular road bonani kakkar of environment action group public called up the director general of kmc parks and squares department who promised to look into the issue but the pruning activity persisted this unscientific pruning in which branches facing the road are cut thereby leaving the tree lopsided and vulnerable has been going on for over a decade it has led to a sharp rise in uprooting of trees during norwesters this year too the kmc has decided to disturb the centre of gravity of trees before the norwester strikes it appears to be a deliberate attempt to topple the trees kakkar fumedironically mechanical ladders were pressed into service to prune trees uniformly but with untrained and unsupervised labourers engaged to do the job the lopsided pruning activity continuedlook at the luxuriant crown of trees in the maidan and the poor condition of trees in the rest of the city they are assaulted so many times that it is a miracle that they still stand i have always known that trimming should be done before monsoon but nowadays it happens in spring late summer and again in autumn sometimes transporting of tall idols during pujas is cited for pruning at others no reason is attributed at all kakkar pointed outbasant kumar singh a botanist at the indian botanic garden said unscientific cutting of tree branches is one of the primary reasons for toppling of trees during norwesters the city has lost hundreds of trees in storms in the recent years much of it is due to the lopsided pruning activity singh also pointed out that presummer pruning helped only deciduous trees evergreen trees particularly those that flower and fruit and attract birds should not be made bald at the onset of summerresidents of anil roy road like surjodeb basu are already facing the heat as all the branches of trees have been hacked on this stretch returning home one eve ning i found the pavement covered in hacked branches and trees looking withered this summer there will be no respite from the heat as branches with leaves that would shade the road are gonearound 25 trees whose branches were chopped along this road include ashoka holud basanti radhachura and krishnachurakakkar basu and several others have tried to make sense of the civic bodys actions from the kmc diretor general concerned debashish chakraborty but instead of explaining the reason for the drive he asked them to speak to