Allocation for Trees: DNCC couldn’t spend even half the money in last eight years

Dhaka North City Corporation could utilise less than half the allocated funds for tree plantation in the last eight years, depriving the dwellers of the mega city of some much-needed greenery.
It allocated Tk 20.50 crore for this purpose from 2015-2016 to 2022-2023 fiscal years. However, the DNCC's environment wing could spend only Tk 8.64 crore or 43 percent of the total allocation, DNCC documents show.
The city corporation failed to spend a single taka out of its allocated Tk 2 crore in 2021-2022 fiscal year. It could use half of the same amount allocated in 2022-2023 fiscal year.
DNCC officials said they could not use the funds as there were not enough spaces for planting trees under its 196.22sqkm jurisdiction since 2015.
Meanwhile, the budget for tree plantation came down to nearly half in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 fiscal years. The DNCC allocated Tk 2.50 crore in the two fiscal years. Of the amount, Tk 2.35 crore was spent, according to the documents.
For the four fiscal years from 2015-2016 to 2018-2019, the DNCC allocated Tk 14 crore for tree plantation. During this period, it could use only Tk 5.25 crore for this purpose.
Talking to The Daily Star, Ward-14 Councillor Humayun Rashid, also the president of DNCC's environment development committee, said they need more budget to increase the city's greenery.
"The fund is too little to protect even the existing trees. We need gardeners and vehicles to tend to the trees," he said.
Adil Mohammad Khan, president of Bangladesh Institute of Planners, said that spending a little money would not make the city green.
"The low budget and poor implementation prove the DNCC's lack of attention to the environment," he told this correspondent.
He added that due to the shortage of trees, the city dwellers are suffering more during heatwaves.
A recent study titled "Prospects and Challenges of Achieving Sustainable Urban Green Spaces: A case study of urban greening in DNCC, Bangladesh" shows that the green cover in the northern portion of the capital decreased from 47 percent in 1992 to just 16.17 percent in 2022.
Barren land areas for planting trees in Dhaka north have dropped from around 11sqkm in 2012 to 2.2sqkm in 2022, said the study published on May 9 in US-based journal Plos Sustainability and Transformation.
In March last year, a study conducted by Buet's Department of Urban and Regional Planning revealed that Dhaka city has less than 8.5 percent green areas, while it should have 20 percent.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, the chief executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), said, "I don't see new trees being planted or the existing ones being taken care of.
"The DNCC may not have properly assessed the space available for tree plantation," she told this newspaper.
Terming the city a concrete jungle, she stressed the need for making rooftop gardening compulsory for commercial and private buildings to increase green spaces.
Contacted, Nuruzzaman Khan, executive engineer (additional charge) environment, climate and disaster management circle of the DNCC, said there is a plan to spend the unused money for greenery this monsoon on footpaths, central reservations, on the canal banks, and other suitable places.
DNCC Mayor Atiqul Islam told this correspondent that he was more focused on the proper use of funds instead of just spending public money.
"Taking care of the trees is more challenging than planting new ones. To look after the trees, we have appointed 47 gardeners and officials," he said, adding that there was not a single supervisor to tend to the trees eight years ago.
"I'll spend money, but I don't like to use where the chances of return are nil."
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