Residents protest against cutting of trees along Sohna road

Gurugram: To save its diminishing green cover, now residents along the Sohna road have come together to protest the move of the government of agencies to axe trees for the widening of the road. This is the second major protest where residents have teamed up together to save the green cover of the city after the Aravalli biodiversity park which gained a lot of traction. Once again there can be a scenario in Gurugram when the price of development will be paid by the trees of the Millennium city. There may be a possibility that over 10,000 trees may be felled on Gurugram's Sohna Road as the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is all set to begin the works of revamping the infrastructure of the busy route. The revamping of infrastructure at Sohna Road is seen as a major step towards developing the Delhi-Mumbai corridor.

Sources indicate that the permission of axing the trees have been given by the Ministry of Environment and Forests with certain riders. There is, however, no official confirmation of the order by the NHAI officials. It will not be easy for the public agency to go ahead and cut such a large number of trees as certain environmental organizations have warned of going to National Green Tribunal over the matter. Earlier also, the environmental held the unique protest of Chipko movement in order to save 1300 trees from being cut for the construction of the underpass at the Atul Kataria Chowk.

Lakhs of trees over the years have been felled in Gurugram as the city has expanded to most favoured residential and commercial cities in the country. More than 6000 trees have been felled along the Delhi Jaipur Highway where there is the construction of flyovers and underpasses at the busy traffic intersections. Earlier also thousands of trees were cut when NH-8 was bring converted into an expressway way back in 2005.