Trees aged between three and 10 years and reared in the state forest department’s tall tree nurseries will be replanted in the spots where trees were felled by Cyclone Amphan, civic officials said.

The decision was taken at a meeting held at the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) headquarters on Saturday.

“Trees that are up to 18ft tall or equal to the height of a one-and-a-half-storey building will be transplanted,” said a state government official who attended the meeting.

It was proposed at the meeting that the CMC and the state forest and environment departments would collaborate with each other to plant trees, saplings and seedlings. The existing practice is to leave the task to contractors.

Metro reported on Saturday that naturalists and botanists were calling for a scientific plantation policy. They said specialists experienced in nurturing trees must be involved in plantation work.

According to an estimate, over 5,000 trees fell while Amphan was howling through the city on May 20.

“We will plant a tree in each of the places where old trees got uprooted,” Firhad Hakim, the chairman of CMC’s board of administrators, said on Saturday.

The state government official who attended the meeting said the plantation would start from Southern Avenue on June 5, the World Environment Day. Trees from the forest department’s tall tree nurseries in Salt Lake and New Town will be planted along the south Calcutta thoroughfare.

Hakim also said the CMC was mulling the idea of entrusting residents or shopkeepers of an area with taking care of trees there.

A naturalist said it was impossible for any government or civic body to take care of all trees in a city. “Giving ownership of a tree to a community is a good idea,” he said.

Hoardings

Hakim also said on Saturday that there should be a policy for hoardings in the city. “The policy will decide how many hoardings can be allowed on any road. You put up a hoarding in your house and it can collapse one day during a storm and injure you or someone else. This cannot be allowed,” he said.