200 crore trees by roadside: The number games we play

Not just national highways but every road in India will have to be lined with trees to achieve Nitin Gadkari’s ambitious target. But will his government then turn to claim natural forests in the name of development?

FirstPost, 22 June, 2014

Nitin Gadkari is one of the more innovative ministers in the new government. In an apparent masterstroke linking afforestation with rural employment, the minister for highways, who took charge of the rural development ministry after his colleague Gopinath Munde’s tragic death, announced last week that the government could employ 30 lakh youth in planting and nurturing trees by the roadside.

“The length of national highways in the country is one lakh kilometre. I have asked officials to come out with a plan to plant 200 crore trees along these stretches which in turn would create jobs for the unemployed… and protect the environment,” he said while inaugurating a conference on Regeneration of Rivers in New Delhi. A similar scheme could be implemented, he added, under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) along state highways and other roads.

At the root of his idea, Gadkari said, was the concept of value addition. It floored many. Even the skeptical were content to note how momentous an achievement this would be should the scheme meet even half the target. The sheer scale of the ambition made international headlines. But Gadkari’s numbers don’t stand scrutiny.

No, the real problem is not that the national highways add up to only 79,243 km. But it is possible that the new minister is confident about expanding that network by 25% in the next five years and factored in that projection in his calculation.

Trees are planted on both sides of the road and let’s assume that the minister had not one but two rows on each side in mind. Few stretches of highways have enough flank space to have even two rows of trees, let alone four, as according to a September 1998 guideline of Gadkari’s own ministry, the distance between rows of trees must be at least 6 metres. So, to accommodate 200 crore trees in four rows along one lakh kilometer, simple arithmetic says we need 5000 trees every kilometer or one tree every 20 cm.

It is common knowledge that trees can’t grow unless at least 2 meters apart. Large indigenous species like Banyan, Ashok, Bahera, Babul, Peepal, Neem, Mango or Mahua need a lot more space. It is often customary to plant saplings one or two metres apart, considering only 25-50 per cent saplings survive to grow 2-4 meters apart. But Gadkari was talking about 200 crore trees and not saplings. Even if the government manages to cram in a tree every 3 meters in four rows, one lakh kilometers of national highway cannot accommodate more than 13.5 crore trees.

COUNT THE TREES: The dense canopy cover in the dry deciduous forests of Ranthambhore in Rajasthan.
PHOTO: Dharmendra Khandal

Unless, of course, Gadkari had the entire road length of India which, at 33 lakh kilometers, can indeed absorb more than 200 crore trees in single rows on both sides. Double the rows and we will have more than 400 crore trees. That way, the potential employment of 30 lakh youth also makes sense. If it were only the one lakh kilometers of national highway, each would be assigned a ridiculous 300-odd-metre stretch to look after. But to cover 33 lakh kilometers and 200-400 crore trees, each will have custody of about 700-1400 trees in a little over one kilometer.

The wages can be paid from the MNREGA budget. But even at Rs 10 per sapling, planting 400-800 crore saplings (not more than 50% survives) will drain the exchequer of Rs 4,000-8,000 crore. That’s a lot of money and one wonders if the government will dip into the Rs 11,000-crore booty lying with the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) that collects the compensation the industry pays for destroying forests.

Not that the CAMPA funds are otherwise being properly utilized by the ministry of environment and forests. More often than not, target-oriented government policies are making forest staff clear degraded natural forests, where root stocks would rebound given protection, to plant saplings. But if the highway ministry neglects fruit-bearing, resilient indigenous trees for fast-growing exotic ones such as eucalyptus or gulmohor that have little or no ecological value, the expenditure, under whichever head it is incurred, will be a tragic waste.

Realistically, if Gadkari achieves even 10 per cent of his target and successfully grows 20 crore indigenous trees species by the roadside, it will be a grand feat. But how much will it really account for in terms of forest cover? Nothing, really. Plantations can never substitute for natural forests in biodiversity and hydrological value. But over two decades, successive governments have over reported increased forest cover by including commercial and roadside plantations and even exotic invasive species. A recent study by the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) has reported that India’s actual forest cover is what the Forest Survey of India had reported back in 1997 which has since been jacked up by including coffee, arecanut, cashew or rubber estates and even parks and gardens.

At the risk of sweeping generalization across geography and forest types, it is possible to estimate that every square kilometer of primary forest with 70% canopy density hosts at least 25,000 large trees (each with an average canopy spread of 3 meters on all sides). So, will the government claim 20 crore roadside trees as equivalent to 8,000 sq km of forests and justify diversion of a comparable stretch of forest land for development? Even the UPA in its rush for growth could destroy only 2000 sq km of forests in four years between 2007 and 2011.