A branch of a tree that was allegedly being trimmed came crashing down on a moving car at the Cornfield Road-Rashbehari Avenue crossing in south Kolkata’s Ballygunge on Wednesday morning, smashing the rear windshield and raising questions about whether any safety measures are adopted while pruning trees along a busy road.
The branch smashed the glass and the boot of the car. A 53-year-old woman, a doctor with a private hospital, was in the rear seat. She was lucky to have escaped without injuries.
Jayati Sengupta, a paediatrician, was so shocked by the sound of the crash on the car and the noise of the glass smashing into pieces that she took a few seconds to gather herself.
Falling from a height, the branch could have killed someone if it fell directly on him or her.
Trees standing on pavements are pruned mostly by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). The police also prune trees occasionally.
The 10.30am incident raised some important questions:
- Can tree branches be chopped off on a busy road on a weekday morning?
- Is it not the responsibility of the agency cutting a tree to cordon off the area under it?
- Who is responsible for the safety of pedestrians and commuters?
- Is the agency liable to compensate the owner of the damaged car? An officer of South-east Traffic Guard said there was no tree trimming programme by the police at the Cornfield Road-Rashbehari Avenue crossing on Wednesday.
Local councillor Sudarshana Mukherjee said she was unaware of any such work having been undertaken on Wednesday. A KMC official, too, said he did not know if any tree-trimming work was underway at the site on Wednesday.
“Cornfield Road becomes very narrow near its intersection with Rashbehari Avenue. Is it right to prune trees on such a busy road on a weekday morning? From around 11am on weekdays, the road teems with school students. What if the tree branch fell on some of them?” asked Sengupta, the paediatrician.
A KMC official said there was no restriction on pruning trees on weekday mornings, even on a busy road. “The portion of a road or a footpath under a tree being trimmed is never cordoned off, but workers alert pedestrians,” he said. Tree trimming, mostly done by contractors hired by the KMC, rarely happens under the supervision of civic officials.
Sengupta, who has lodged a complaint, said a vehicle that was parked on the roadside, at a spot where some chopped-off branches had been kept, left after the crash. She said she noted down the registration number.