Civic workers deploy a crane to chop off branches of the giant banyan tree dangling over Convent Road for nine days. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

A 20-tonne crane and a team of 30-odd workers deployed by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation on Monday could remove only a portion of the uprooted banyan tree that has been dangling over Convent Road for the past nine days.

As men and machine descended on the locality around 11.30am, residents heaved a sigh of relief at the civic authorities’ realisation that the century-old banyan, felled by a Nor’wester on May 18, should be removed. By the end of the day, not even half the job was done.

“We have been asked to work round the clock, if we have to. I have no idea how long this will take. It is a huge tree,” one of the workers said.

Metro had reported on Monday about the giant tree becoming a threat to motorists and pedestrians. The tree brought down with it high-tension electric cables, telephone wires and three lamp posts on either side of the road. Several households on Convent Road have since been without power.

“It took the civic authorities more than a week to react to our plight, and even that has been a half-hearted effort. A disaster can happen any moment,” Ashok Pachisia, a resident of 9 Convent Road, said.

Pachisia couldn’t help laughing at the sight of the workers trying to chop the branches of the tree into small pieces with their small axes. “We want to know whether the corporation is at all prepared to tackle such a situation,” he said.

Each CMC borough has not more than 10 axes and no crane. The one that was used in the Convent Road operation was hired.

“We have been struggling to remove trees felled by recent Nor’westers. We have had to hire workers, too, because we are short of manpower. We need powerful cranes and professionals for such operations,” Bimal Singh, the chairman of Borough VI, said.