Union Minister for Road Transport and Shipping Nitin Gadkari, has instructed National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to translocate all 5,000 trees of Ajni Vann to another place after rise in protest against the proposed massive tree felling in Ajni Railway Colony for construction of Inter Modal Station.
Apart from this, NHAI will also carry out compensatory plantation of 25,000 trees in city limits.
The instruction was given by Gadkari during a meeting in which all senior officials of various departments were present.
“No tree will be chopped in Ajni area for the IMS Project. All 5,000 trees will be translocated to other places in the city and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) will decide the place for translocation, while NHAI will take care of the survival of the plants” said Abhijit Jichkar, Project Director, NHAI during the meeting.
Gadkari instructed to start the process of translocation and plantation from July end and to complete all formalities as early as possible.
He asked to form a committee under the presidentship of former CSIR NEERI Director Dr Satish Wate and also include environmentalists in the committee.
The committee will decide all stages of the translocation and plantation process and also take vigil of their survival.
NMC will prepare a report of translocation and plantation and it will submit to NHAI for further perusal.
However, environment activists of Nagpur called has called the idea of translocation a big flop because the survival rate of translocated tree decreases.
“We have so many bad examples of translocation that carried out by Maha Metro in the city. It is just a murder oftreesbyuprooting them and leave them on different place to die,” said Jaydeep Das, former honorary Wildlife Warden and environment activist.
“Instead of killing of such a huge number of trees, NHAI should shift the IMS project at Khapri which will solve many problems easily,” Das added.
Kaustav Chatterjee, Founder, Green Vigil Foundation, said, “Nagpur climate is not suitable for translocation of all type of species.
Invasive species like Subabul should not be translocated as they are not environment-friendly. Similarly, indigenous species like Neem, Peepal, Banyan, Tamarind etc., should replace Subabul in compensatory plantation plan.”
