Elderly woman replants peepal tree instead of axing it for consturction

Veenakumari (60), a resident of Ramanathapuram, who did not want to chop down a tree in order to take up construction activity in her land, decided to give a new lease of life by uprooting and replanting the tree.

The tree was growing in a small farm maintained by her, where she planned to construct a house. However, Veenakumari wasn’t ready to axe down the tree that provided shade and cool air all these years.

She then approached environmentalists on the possibility of replanting the tree. After a preliminary study on its possibilities, a team led by Syed from the environmental organisation Osai decided to replant the tree.

Works began around 8 pm on Wednesday. First, a pit was dug around the tree using earth movers and water was poured inside to loosen the soil. Then the huge tree was uprooted and loaded on the lorry. It was transported to a spot in Mohan Nagar in Kalapatty area where it was planted. A neem tree, which was grown near the peepal tree, was also replanted nearby in the new place.

“Both the trees were planted near a temple as Veenakumari desired for sentimental reasons. Generally, neem trees cannot be found grown near Peepal trees as birds which flock this tree disperse neem seeds after consuming its fruit,” he said.

The replanted Peepal tree is expected to come to life by showing growth in a few weeks. Syed claimed that he has so far saved more than 100 trees from being cut down. They all were replanted in different places, he said.

At a time when trees are chopped in large numbers in Coimbatore citing reasons like road widening and infrastructure development works, the re-plantation exercise by anindividual has come in for praise worthy of emulation.