The road widening projects of
BBMP and BDA have drastically decreased the green cover in Bangalore. Such projects are designed
selectively by choosing the roads with maximum number of trees that can be cut.
At grassroots level, contractor is the king. Engineers are mere puppets in the
hands of these tree-killers. The Timber mafia rules the roost. The recent
widening of Chittaranjan Das Avenue in Thippasandra bears testimony to such contractor-oriented-work where countless
trees were butchered mercilessly. For every tree identified many more unmarked
trees were axed and the valuable tree carted away by the contractors.
The new Sirsi Circle – Agara signal-free corridor
sought to be imposed by the government is bound to require tree-cutting. The
Karnataka High Court, in a landmark judgment, directed the concerned government
agencies to protect trees and also involve local citizens in the planning
process. This forced the government to invite the public to a meeting on 13th
August, 2012 in Vikasa Soudha. The meeting was chaired by Sri.Kaushik
Mukherjee, Addl. Chief Secretary to Government of Karnataka and other participants
included Mrs.Amita Prasad, Principal Secretary in Urban Development Department
and Sri.Shankarlinge Gowda, Commissioner of BBMP apart from representatives of
various RWA, NGOs and general public. The discussions mainly centered around
Hosur Road – Koramangala – HSR Layout portion of the project with the residents
of these areas protesting the traffic diversion and the resulting chaos which
would affect their daily lives. Surprisingly, nobody raised the issue of
protecting greenery which was the basic premise on which the High Court had
directed the civic agencies to consider public opinion before embarking on such
infrastructure projects which involved public money.
At the fag end of the meeting, I drew
the attention of all present to the fact that the reason for the meeting itself
was to conserve greenery and to review the need for the signal free corridor. The
alternative routes or project proposals to benefit those who were
inconvenienced by the alignment planned by BDA could be discussed only after
the two primary issues were addressed. Trees should be protected at all costs. I
explicitly suggested that the road alignment and width must be marked out
clearly so that only trees that intruded into the edge of the road could be
identified and labeled. And local citizens must have a right to say no to cut
any trees which do not affect the road widening work. Each tree to be felled should
be marked and only that particular tree must be cut in the presence of local
people. If the contractor unauthorisedly removes any unlabelled tree, then the
engineer supervising the work and the contractor should be penalized
appropriately and criminal proceedings should be initiated for murdering the
tree. Tree cutting is a punishable offence under existing statutes and also as
per orders of the Green Bench of Supreme Court of India.
The Chairman assured that he
would take all necessary steps to prevent unnecessary removal of trees. The
sincerity and commitment of the top officials are not in doubt. But, the same
seriousness does not percolate down to the lower level supervisors who look the
other way and let the contractor do what he wants. This contractor-engineer
nexus should be broken.
Greenery of Bangalore is more precious and essential than
the comforts and conveniences of a few elite. Before Bangalore
goes bald, we need to cry a halt to development projects which necessitate
reduction of green cover in Bangalore.
It is indeed heartening to note that the High Court of Karnataka has supported
this cause of preservation of trees and forced the government to rethink on
infrastructure projects which affect greenery.
A tree is not just a green canopy
providing much-needed oxygen. A tree is an ecosystem by itself. Millions of
micro-organisms flourish in a tree apart from the birds, insects and reptiles
that make it their home. Felling a tree uproots the lives of these living
beings which have more right to live on this planet by virtue of having been
here prior to evolution of mankind. Human beings have no right to degrade
nature, nor cut the defenseless trees.
