Amid the crumbling plaster and peeling paint of Connaught Place, an uninvited tenant has quietly taken root – literally. In cracks, on parapet walls, along the labyrinth of colonnaded corridors, Ficus religiosa – the Peepal tree – has woven itself into the bones of the city’s most iconic marketplace.
Sacred yet fiercely opportunistic if left unchecked, it has become an adversary for traders and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), carving a silent, green siege into a heritage site.
A walk through CP reveals the extent of the takeover. In A-block alone, a dozen or more trees pierce the stuccoed skyline, some clinging to the outer walls, others perched on first-floor ledges with roots dangling all the way down to the road. Near a public convenience run by NDMC, a giant Peepal has swallowed the façade of a two-storey building almost whole. In D-block’s service lane near the Odeon Cinema, the plants thrive in exposed brickwork, their roots gripping the walls like ancient fingers.
C-block is worse. Above the Jain Book Depot – whose partial collapse in 2017 became a cautionary tale – dozens of Peepal trees now sprout, their heart-shaped leaves fluttering over a roof system already weakened by age. On rooftops in M-block too, the Peepal casts an almost beautiful silhouette as it rises from crevices.
Experts stress that this invasion is not random. The Peepal is among the most resilient lithophytes on the subcontinent, a species evolved to grow on stone. Its roots, thin as thread at first, search relentlessly for moisture. When they find it, they expand, drawing water from the soil beneath and shrinking the ground. Over time, as tiny wisps become full-fledged trees, the roots widen their reach, and it exerts pressure on the very structure that supported them – walls, parapets, foundations.
Documents reviewed by HT show that roots have begun cracking walls and destabilising structures. Traders, alarmed by the slow-motion spread, have been pleading for intervention.
“A Peepal tree is growing in our backyard in A-block. Over the years, the tree has grown so much that its roots have gone into one of our walls and have damaged the wall extensively,” one trader wrote in a plea to NDMC. “The girth of the tree is so large that it is hindering the ingress and egress of the staircase. We are afraid that the wall will break and the roof may come down. The roots of the tree have gone inside the manhole and have also damaged its structure.”
The New Delhi Traders Association (NDTA) has written two letters this year warning of the accumulating threat. In September, it cautioned NDMC’s engineering wing that “many unwanted trees are growing on the parapet walls and roofs of CP buildings, creating cracks that can be dangerous if not removed.” The same letter noted that the roots are now driving rainwater into shops and showrooms, causing widespread seepage.
A second letter, written to NDMC’s horticulture wing in October, paints a similar picture – of thick foliage obscuring signboards, roots emerging from pavements, and branches brushing against the first floors of heritage structures. “Some of these trees have grown so large that they’re now covering facades and blocking shopfronts,” traders said.
“Almost every CP block now has Peepal growth on the roofs,” said NDTA general secretary Vikram Badhwar. “These cause seepage during the monsoon. The repair work is slow because every restoration in CP requires approval from the Heritage Conservation Committee, and NDMC has been unresponsive.”
Then there’s the bureaucratic stumbling block of time. Once the trees grow to a certain size, where they are qualified as a tree, they can’t be removed without permission from the forest department – permissions that, they say, have been pending for over two years. “The service lanes and middle circle have several such overgrown trees. Once the girth of the tree becomes large, they can’t even be removed without permission of the forest department,” said NDTA president Atul Bhargava.
An NDMC official said vegetation clearance is carried out routinely and that the council will examine the issues flagged.
The forest department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But removing the Peepal is not easy even with approvals. The species is designed by nature to survive. Simply cutting it back often triggers regrowth. A former horticulture department official explained that the most effective method involves using glyphosate – the active ingredient in many systemic herbicides – and injecting a 1% solution of sodium arsenate. Once the plant is dead, cracks must be filled with a traditional mixture of lime, soaked black lentils and biocide to prevent re-rooting. A second official confirmed this process, calling it the only way to ensure long-term removal.
The last time NDMC had announced a comprehensive vegetation-removal drive was four years ago. Then, in 2022, NDMC launched “Mission Peepal” to remove such vegetation from the outer and inner circles of Connaught Place. However, the campaign seems to have lost steam. Since then, traders said, there has only been a superficial clean-up ahead of the 2023 G20 Summit, which was hosted by Delhi.
As a result, Bhargava said, hundreds of trees have come up, adding that NDMC needs to undertake another large-scale drive. “The vegetation has to be removed, cracks need to be filled and herbicide chemicals need to be applied to prevent its growth again,” he told HT.
Connaught Place, designed by British architect Robert Tor Russell in the early 20th century, is one of Delhi’s most prized heritage precincts. While the NDMC area was originally planted with native species such as Neem, Jamun and Arjun, traders said, the Peepal was never part of the plan. Today, it has become the unintended emblem of civic neglect.
As Bhargava concluded, “Unless a sustained, heritage-sensitive removal drive is undertaken, the battle between the Peepal and Connaught Place may soon tip in favour of the trees.”