Koregaon Park, a Pune neighborhood famous for its dense green canopy and cool climate, is rapidly losing its iconic environmental identity. Once considered a key green lung of the city, the area is turning into a graveyard for heritage trees due to the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) botched tree transplantation drives for infrastructure development. Ground reports and local environmental activists reveal that of the 109 trees the PMC claimed to have safely relocated during a road-widening project in Koregaon Park Annex 18 months ago, at least 45 have completely dried up and died.
In a more shocking revelation, several decades-old trees were reportedly never even shifted to new sites. Their roots were severed, and their stumps were left standing in place to die naturally. In Maharashtra, trees aged 50 years and above are granted special legal protection as “Heritage Trees” under the state’s Tree Act. Relocating or felling such trees requires rigorous approvals, severe financial penalties, and mandatory compensatory planting.
To circumvent these strict regulatory hurdles, environmentalists allege that PMC officials routinely manipulate official tree censuses and project dockets. The most glaring instance involves two iconic, massive rubber trees. While the PMC recorded them as merely 20 to 22 years old on official papers, long-time residents and botany enthusiasts confirm the trees had stood for over half a century.
“By artificially shrinking a tree’s age from 50 years down to 20 years on paper, the PMC effectively stripped them of their heritage protection status,” explained an environmental researcher. “It allowed them to pass quick tree-felling orders with minimal oversight and negligible accountability.”
The controversy stems from an April 2025 road-widening project stretching from a local farm to a five-star hotel, where 193 trees were initially marked as obstacles. The PMC Tree Authority ultimately approved 108 trees for complete felling and 85 for scientific transplantation. Local resident Bajirao Shinde criticized the PMC’s negligence, while activist Manoj Rao noted that transplantation has become an easy legal loophole for the civic body to cut trees without ensuring their long-term survival. Stay tuned to know more only with us.
The anger over failing transplantation drives has spread beyond Koregaon Park to neighborhoods like Kothrud, Bhosalenagar, and Somwar Peth. Citizens across Pune are now calling for an independent audit of all PMC tree transplantation projects executed over the past three years.
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