Nearly 350 trees, many of them decades old, have been chopped off in the heart of Bhubaneswar to make way for the construction of high-rise apartments for the members of the Odisha Legislative Assembly. The authorities have planned to cut 870 trees for the project, sources in the forest department said.
The felling of trees is going on near the Odisha Legislative Assembly where earlier the MLA colony was located. Almost all the quarters have already been demolished and the felling of trees is going on to facilitate the construction of the high-rise buildings. The residential high-rise apartment is coming up at a cost of Rs 275 crore.
The cutting down of trees comes at a time when the temperature in the city is hovering around 40 degrees Celsius. The indiscriminate cutting down of trees has raised concern among social activists and environmentalists. Members of the Mahanadi Bachao Andolan (save Mahanadi river) and other civil society members have launched an agitation at the project site to pressurise the government to stop the cutting of trees.
The demolished old MLA quarters in Bhubaneswar. Ashwinee Pati
“We will not allow the authorities to chop off another 500 trees. The state government has the desired technology to uproot a tree and replant it somewhere else,” Mahanadi Bachao Andolona convenor Sudarsan Das told The Telegraph.
“In the wake of Cyclone Fani that uprooted many trees, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had himself tweeted a photo of how the forest department replanted an uprooted tree. Why is the same technology not being applied here,” questioned Das. The leader said, “We have already lodged an FIR in the police station on the issue.”A visit to the site would reveal that the MLA colony, which was located in an area full of greenery, now looks completely different. All the big trees have been chopped off and logs of different sizes have been kept ready for transportation.
Social activists sit on dharna to protest cutting down of trees. Ashwinee Pati
Another social activist Prasanna Bishoi said: “I wept when I looked at the devastation caused by machines. No one bothers about the trees. The city is expanding fast. Why cannot the MLA colony be shifted to another location in the city and this area be developed as a city forest. It would be beneficial for the city’s climate.”
Dillip Sabat, another activist, argued, “A plant could have been developed for the construction of the building without chopping off the trees. No one has thought about it?”
The Odisha Forest Development Corporation (OFDC) has been entrusted with the job to fell down the tree. The Odisha Bridge Construction Corporation (OBCC) will build high-rise buildings. The OBCC has already been allocated Rs 50 crore to prepare the groundwork.
Contacted, city divisional forest officer (DFO) Yasobanta Beriha told The Telegraph, “We plan to plant 8,700 saplings, ten-time of the trees that would be chopped off for this purpose. All the saplings would be planted under the compensatory afforestation project. We have earmarked Rs 68 lakh for this.”
On being asked why technology was not adopted to up root a tree and replant its somewhere else, Beriha said, “It would be too costly. We don’t have the required machinery to replant all the 870 trees. Besides, it will take a lot of time.”
About the age of trees that are going to be chopped off, Beriha said: “Most of the trees were planted here after the Odisha Assembly’s colony was set up.
'The trees comprise mango, Jamun and other trees. A few trees are more than 70 years old. We stopped cutting down trees today the following protest.”
Official sources said after Odisha’s capital was shifted from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar in 1948, systematic plans were made to develop Bhubaneswar into a modern city.
“If we take the 1950s as the cut-off year for the plant of the trees, the trees must be 70 years old,” said an official.
