Mumbai | The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will begin a citywide tree census next week as part of its pre-monsoon preparedness, the exercise being conducted after a gap of eight years.

The counting of trees will take about 1.5 years, it said in a release on Wednesday.

The last census was carried out in 2018, during which around 33.7 lakh trees were enumerated, including those in Aarey Colony in the western suburbs, it said.

A daylong training workshop on scientific tree pruning and enumeration was held at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Botanical Garden and Zoo, popularly known as Byculla zoo, it said.

Quoting Garden Superintendent Jitendra Pardeshi, the release said the upcoming tree census will be carried out with the help of experts and modern technology.

The civic body has geared up its machinery for pre-monsoon works, including pruning of potentially hazardous trees and branches across Mumbai, it said.

Over 45,000 trees have been identified for trimming and pruning ahead of the monsoon, BMC officials said.

The BMC undertakes pruning of dangerous tree branches every year before the onset of the monsoon, ensuring environmental balance while using modern techniques, the release said. This year, the exercise will be carried out on a larger scale, it said.

Tree census in Mumbai is usually carried out every five years, but the latest exercise got delayed due to the COVID pandemic, said officials