March 3: The Andhra Pradesh Biodiversity Board officials said the decision of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to plant trees that provide shade alone is a "blunder". The plantation programmes of GHMC would have filled up coffers of the civil body had it gone for planting economically important trees. The AP biodiversity board chairman, Mr R. Hampaiah, said, "Planting trees only for green cover is a blunder. If we estimate that there are five crore trees in Greater Hyderabad limits and if they were fruit-yielding, we could get at least Rs 100 per year per tree and GHMC would have earned Rs 500 crore per year. Huge revenue would have been generated. They should have gone for for trees such as lime, mango, jaek fruit, tamarind and neem." The chief horticulturist of GHMC, Mr D.V.L. Ravindran, said, "The main aim of plantation is to control pollution and decrease radia tion. There will be more greenery and more shade. If the concentration is on yield it would have diverted the attention. Even then we are also planting useful trees such as neem and tamarind." The GHMC officials also resisted the idea of planting fruit yielding plants stating that monkeys and crow menace would increase. Mr Hampaiah said, "GHMC is spending a lot of money They should rethink their strategy."