In name of development, thousands of trees felled in Gurugram

Gurugram: Once considered to be a preferred destination by many people for shifting their residential address because of its green spaces, Gurugram today is choking under the depleting green cover.

According to an official data, the green cover of Gurugram district is meagre 8 per cent while it is only 3 per cent in main Gurugram city. Even though the state forest departments had targeted to enhance the green cover of the city to 10 per cent and subsequently 20 per cent in the coming years, it has not been able to meet

its target.

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 six thousand 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 being converted into an expressway way back in 2005. This is not for the first time that there have been massive cutting of trees along the NH-8. Earlier too for the widening of roads, a large part of the green cover has been removed.

Haryana forest department which is also involved in the selling of wood and commercial plantation is among the few government departments that is making profits. However, the last commercial plantation that was conducted by the department in Gurugram was way back in 2010.

In a damming report that has been obtained through RTI, there have been allegations that more than 20,000 trees spread over 57 acres in Aravallis have been cut for setting up of police lines in Manesar. The project was started eight years ago in 2010. After the report was made public, a probe was launched by the government agencies to enquire whether rules were flouted to build the project.

Widescale tree felling continues to be reported from other Aravalli areas of Chauma and Mangar. In 2017, an FIR was also filed against a builder in Gurugram which in cahoots with certain government officials cleared axed trees in the green belt area so that its project can be expanded.

"There are a lot of factors that are involved in dwindling green cover in the city. Unplanned urbanisation, corruption and disregard of citizens for maintaining greenery are now resulting in a situation where a large number of trees are being felled by authorities without any accountability," stated Colonel (Retd) SS Oberoi, a city-based environmentalist.