The last time he was in town 10 years ago, the city used to be far greener, Shyamal Sanyal, adman based in Bangalore, told friends last week. “In many places, one sees streets dotted with enclosures in which some agency may have planted a sapling, but it never grew into a tree,” he added.

This is not just a stray remark. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government has perceived as much. “We do not have a professional and institutionalised method of monitoring afforestation plans in Calcutta,” a senior official of the state forest department admitted on Friday.

With reports of trees being felled drastically across the city and those cut down even with permission from the state Pollution Control Board (PCB) not being replaced by enough greenery, the government is now drawing up a “fool-proof plan”.

Tree-cutting committees under the state PCB are authorised to okay cutting of trees in the city. “Once permission is granted, the agency or individual applying for cutting down trees has to replace them elsewhere. But there is hardly any monitoring of whether the saplings planted are actually growing into trees,” the official added.

Sometimes, the trees are never replaced, otherwise the saplings die prematurely in the absence of proper care. So, the survival rate of plants in the state’s afforestation plan is extremely poor and so is the follow-up action, the official admitted.

Though the rule is to plant five saplings against every tree cut down, some agencies — private and government — do not bother to conform. “The Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners usually does a good job when it has to cut down trees for flyover projects or widening of roads. But many agencies often flout the rules. Moreover, no one has bothered so far about monitoring the afforestation plan,” the official added.

The government intends to put an end to that. A plan on this is now reported to be awaiting the nod of the chief secretary.

“Once the plan is sanctioned in principle, there can be some finer changes,” the forest department official said.

As per the plan drawn up so far, when individuals or government agencies apply for permission to cut a tree, they also have to submit a detailed plan of how the tree will be replaced.

“The idea is to recover the depleted greenery of the city,” the official signed off.