While Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has gone ahead with her proposed plantation drive across the city, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) decision to carry out a similar drive has hit a roadblock.

After nearly 1,500 trees were uprooted during Cyclone Aila, Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya had assured to replenish the lost greenery. The civic body, however, faces several difficulties in areas where population density is high.

Officials of the civic body’s parks and squares department feel the task of planting saplings will be a difficult because of two reasons — firstly, the opposition from residents and secondly inadequate space for planting trees.

“At present we are facing resistance from the residents of the areas where we were going to plant trees. The residents are very scared after many big trees fell and damaged their homes,” said Debashis Chakraborty, Deputy Chief Engineer (Parks and Squares), KMC.

The civic officials are now passing the buck and say that it is the responsibility of the state forest department to plant trees across the city’s thoroughfares.

Environmentalists, however, feel that most of the trees got uprooted during the cyclone because of the faulty pruning carried out by the KMC. “The civic authorities do not understand anything about the environment and trees. Most of the trees were uprooted because of faulty pruning. The KMC officials do not care what kind of a tree can be planted where. Basically, it is an environmental loss which will be faced by the people,” said Subhas Dutta, environmentalist.