Ahmedabad’s green cover claims fall apart as over 11,000 trees axed in a decade

Despite promises to expand the city’s green cover, the Amdavad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has quietly approved the felling of over 11,800 fully grown trees in the past 10 years for infrastructure projects including the BRTS, metro rail, flyovers and the bullet train corridor.

This year alone, the AMC earmarked ₹99 crore to plant 40 lakh saplings, touting it as a major environmental drive. Yet officials admit that only about 60% of these saplings survive, while mature trees continue to be axed with official approval.

Records obtained by advocate Atik Saiyed show that between 2015 and 2025, not a single mature tree removed from the city’s five zones Central, East, North-West, West and South has been successfully retransplanted, despite repeated claims by the civic body that felled trees would be relocated.

The “Mission Million Tree” campaign, launched every monsoon with photo-op plantation events around World Environment Day, has become an annual showcase even as approvals for large-scale tree cutting sail through the Recreation Committee, Standing Committee and General Board without objection from either the ruling or opposition parties.

Environmental activists warn that the unchecked felling of dense, decades-old trees will worsen Ahmedabad’s rising heat.