Green Minute News:
Amidst pouring rains, citizens of Bengaluru gathered to reject felling of 368 trees for Bangalore Cantt railway commercial project.
This project is being taken up by Rail Land Development Authority, Ministry of Railways, GOI in a green cover area at Vasant Nagar that includes the Bangalore Cantt Heritage railway station.
Going hammer and tongs in the Public Consultation Meeting on felling of 368 trees including 80 heritage trees for a commercial project in Bengaluru Cantonment Railway land, citizens, RWAs, environmental organizations and activists questioned the need for such a monetization project by the Railways when Bengaluru is at the brink of ecological disaster.
They said even as the city is either facing annual flooding due to rampant urbanization and diversion of water bodies and forest lands for residential and commercial project, there comes another project that is sure to destroy the fragile ecology of the city.
BBMP deputy conservator of forests had postponed this meeting from May 5 to 20th in the aftermath of public outcry and protests by the citizens of Bengaluru. Authorities were faced with massive protests to the commercial project taken up by the Railways in the Cantonment Railway Colony area near Vasant Nagar. Citizen after citizen voiced their protest against a project which they called it as against humanity.
Even before the consultation started, A T Ramaswamy, former four term MLA and minister and environmentalist expressed his shock of turning Bengaluru into a concrete city which had lost its green cover and water bodies. He said, “In the 1970s, the city had a green cover of 70 percent while it has declined to 3 percent due to rampant conversion of forests and lakes into commercial projects, thereby, turning the city into a hellhole.”
People called upon the Railways to take up this project without cutting a single tree and further, declare the Bangalore Cantt station as a heritage monument. Vijay Nishant, urban conservationist and member, Bengaluru Biodiversity Committee said, “We are not against development but for any development project, environment and ecology has to be taken into consideration. Not a single tree should be felled for this project and as per our survey, there are 80 heritage trees which are more than 100-200 years old.”
Amidst heavy rains, many people from different walks of life took part in the public consultation and apprised their opposition to the felling of 368 trees to both the BBMP DCF and the Railways. In fact, the last 20 days, thousands of citizens of Bengaluru came forward to oppose this tree felling project in the form of protests, offline and online campaigns and appealed to the government to stop this controversial project by Railways.
Apart from this, the public consultation meeting both in person and online attracted many activists, environmental groups and senior citizens in Bengaluru.
They expressed their opposition to this ecologically disastrous project and said the city is turning into a concrete city with rising pollution levels, soil erosion, excessive construction, disappearance of tree cover, diversion of urban forests and building of commercial projects and apartment complexes in lakes and tanks and main water channels resulting in flooding during every monsoon.
It may be recollected in April this year; BBMP had quietly published a public notice for felling of 368 trees in a few newspapers that called for public objections and suggestions within 10 days.
However, with a few activists raising this matter in the public domain and thousands of citizens coming forward to express their opposition to this commercial project on railway land (which required felling of 368 trees of various species and 80 trees being more than 100 years old), the public consultation meeting was held on May 20th.
With citizens highly agitated about such an ecologically disastrous project and voicing their total opposition, it is hoped better sense prevails and stops the Indian Railways from taking up such unsustainable projects.