Residents of New Town will be able to adopt trees and nurture them with help from Hidco and the forest department as part of a drive to replant trees by the township’s authorities.

The spots chosen for this are near housing complexes, a Hidco official said.

The decision was taken after Hidco conducted a survey among residents to find out what they wanted to do as a community-driven activity with distancing norms.

Planting trees and gardening topped the list.

Hidco and the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) have requested residents’ associations in all three action areas to plant more trees inside housing complexes as well.

The target is to plant 10,000 trees in New Town by the end of the year, Debashis Sen, the chairman-cum-managing director of Hidco, said.

The trees that will be planted will be at least three years old and of varieties that are resilient to storms.

More than 4,600 trees in the township were uprooted or damaged by Cyclone Amphan in May.

New Town has palm, coconut, cherry blossom, pine and casuarina — all trees with supple trunks and branches — planted along its dividers. Hidco plans to plant more of these varieties among others.

“Planting trees and gardening is therapeutic. All of us are cooped up in our homes because of the pandemic… planting trees and nurturing them will come as a welcome break. We will ensure distancing norms during the plantation and the trees adopted by residents will have a small name tag to help them identify the trees easily,” Sen said.

To encourage residents to take part, Hidco will run a Facebook page chronicling the re-greening drive. Residents can post photographs of their trees on https://www.facebook.com/GreeningNewTown, Sen said. E-certificates will be given to those adopting trees.

Hidco has requested government agencies, corporates and banks to replant trees in New Town.

The state pollution control board will give 4,000 trees to the NKDA to be planted along roads in action areas I, II and III.

An NGO has promised to plant 2,000 trees, the CRPF that has a camp in New Town and a private bank will undertake greening drives as well.

The NKDA will plant trees on vacant plots in New Town and turn them into tree banks to prevent the growth of weeds and the spots from turning into garbage dumps.

“There are a lot of plots where construction activities are still to start. We will plant trees that are more than two years old and can be replanted easily. Once construction starts, the trees will be replanted elsewhere,” an NKDA official said.