With the monsoon season approaching, all five corporations are being equipped with rapid response teams, regular night teams, crane teams, and regular canopy management teams to ensure minimal rain-related damage and to strengthen emergency response to citizen complaints.

According to documents accessed by The Hindu, the city will utilise the services of 30 regular tree canopy management teams, 25 rapid response teams, 11 regular night teams, and 18 crane teams. Each team will comprise eight individuals. In addition, the corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) have identified 13 temporary timber depots. Further, the corporations are also procuring the required machinery to deal with debris-related situations.

At present, there are 27 regular tree canopy management teams, one rapid response team, and two regular night teams. 

The move comes in the wake of recent rains in the city that caused substantial destruction, including the uprooting of 515 trees and the snapping of over 1,500 branches. The shortage of manpower became evident during the rains, as it took nearly a week for the corporations to clear the damage.

According to a GBA source, the delay in clearing the damage occurred despite the involvement of multiple teams, including the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP).

“Many traffic police stations have tree-cutting machines and other safety gear. Wherever necessary, the BTP also engaged in cutting fallen branches, but this was limited to places where the disruption was substantial and required immediate intervention,” the source said.

In addition, the GBA had to rope in tree-cutting and management teams from different districts.

“The tree-cutting teams had even worked overnight to clear the debris last time. The problem was that there were no trained personnel to handle tree-cutting, so we had to bring in teams from different districts. Otherwise, we would have needed a few more days to clear the debris,” he said.

According to officials, tenders for setting up teams for management have been floated, and technical bids have also been received. Technical scrutiny is currently under way to finalise the bids. Once the process is completed, tree canopy management teams will begin work to clear dangerous trees and branches.

Meanwhile, the existing tree management teams are identifying dangerous trees and branches across the city, and their report will be reviewed by the forest cell before such trees are cleared. So far, the forest cell has cleared 1,200 trees that were vulnerable to strong winds and rain, hollow ones, or diseased.

In addition to these, the corporations are also identifying places to set up a dedicated control room in their jurisdictions to deal with flooding complaints.