Logs of wood lie along NH-203 in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 18: At least 27 trees, including some very old ones, have been cut along the National Highway-203 between Bomikhal and Rasulgarh for the construction of a railway overbridge.

Commuters have complained about the work being carried out during the day and causing traffic chaos. Officials of the state government’s roads and buildings (R&B) department said the 885-metre overbridge that starts from the storeroom of public health engineering office (PHEO) at Saheed Nagar, ends on the NH-203 on the other side.

On the Bomikhal side, the overbridge will cover 410 metres on the highway towards Rasulgarh. “We have to cut the trees on both sides of this road to make it wide for traffic movement and construction of service roads. These trees were cut after the authorities concerned were informed about it,” said R&B chief engineer Bijan Behera.

The overbridge that would be constructed at a cost of Rs 29.97 crore and is expected to be ready by the end of March next year. R&B officials said the overbridge would meet the NH-203 before Kochilei haat and there would be a rotary or circular area for free movement of vehicles.

The vehicles coming from the Rasulgarh side would go straight through the overbridge or towards Bomikhal through the service road. Those who want to go towards Kalpana Square from Saheed Nagar would have to turn at the rotary and take the service roads.

“We wrote to the forest division to remove these trees from the road and handed them around Rs 2.42 lakh for planting 10 times the number of cut trees,” said Dukhibandhu Behera, executive engineer of the division. He said there would be 5.5 metre service roads on both sides of the overbridge along the national highway.

Commuters said the authorities should have undertaken the tree-cutting work during non-peak hours. “We have to wait for a long period to cross this stretch because we have to wait till the cut trees are cleared from the road. Yesterday I was driving my son to school, but a felled tree created a traffic jam and made me wait for half an hour,” said Rajanikant Jena, a resident of Rasulgarh.

“We take the best precautions so that no one gets injured during the cutting of trees. Besides, our people try to remove parts of felled trees if they fall on the road and divert traffic immediately,” said a forest official, adding that they would plant 10 times the number of trees fell here.