Poor rate of survival and poor growth of saplings are the major reasons for the failure of afforestation drives in Ahmedabad. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) claims it has an answer to this problem. It now plans to experiment with drip irrigation.
This will save on the cost of engaging contractors to water plants and also ensure judicious use of water. AMC is yet to choose a stretch for the experiment, but sources claim that municipal commissioner Guruprasad Mohapatra has already discussed the basic plan.
Among the plans being analysed are a gravity-based drip irrigation method and one involving pumps. In Gandhinagar, for the past two years, the forest department has been doing this on a one-kilometre stretch between Gh-0 and Gh-1 circles, and laid a network for drip irrigation. The experiment, according to the forest department, not only saved 30% in water wastage but almost 50% on labour and fuel charges that went into operating water tankers.
“ The second idea would be to use recycled water for watering plants. There could be special tanks into which recycled water could be supplied and using gravitation pipes, saplings or trees can be watered by drip irrigation. Traditionally, drip irrigation requires electricity to operate a small pump, the forest department in Gandhinagar has replaced it with a gravity-based system — which doesn’t need electricity,” says a senior AMC official.
“Drip irrigation will ensure plant survivability. There are several cities in the world, which are water scarce that have shown that this experiment works,” says Mohapatra.
In Gandhinagar, forest officials said that they used to flood each plant with 40 to 50 litres of water in a single day. A tanker would pour water around the central verge of a road and on its sides. This was cost intensive and the department used to waste water. The exercise was conducted once every seven to 10 days. In drip irrigation, the department has to just fill a tank installed at a certain height, for close to 1,000 saplings.
