Activists oppose forest dept's move to fell 5,113 trees for road project

Bengaluru: Alleging contempt of court and professional misconduct, a group of activist groups have sent a legal notice to tree officer, Ravishankar SS for issuing an order to fell 5,113 trees for a Karnataka Road Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL) project. The group has demanded an immediate withdrawal of the order.

The decision to fell 5,113 trees has come in the middle of the petitioners fighting in the Karnataka High Court against the expansion of the Sarjapura-Attibele Road. As per the order issued on October 5, KRDCL moved ahead with the axing of trees with immediate effect. As per the order, 5,113 trees were slotted for felling, translocation of 642 and retention of 133 trees.

After witnessing the mass massacre of trees by KRDCL, the activist groups made multiple calls to secure a copy of the order and were only able to get one by October 27. The same order issued on October 5 was uploaded on the department's website by October 27. Activists highlighted that this move by the official was a violation of the High Court order mandating uploading of all documents pertaining to felling of trees on a specific website.

Environment groups have also alleged that the Forest Department of Karnataka has failed to upload the High Court order issued on September 20 in its entirety. The order uploaded on the department website omits the part that instructs the tree officer to produce a final copy of the contracts concerning tree translocation and send the same copy to the petitioner, granting freedom to raise objections.

The group has also alleged that tree felling on the existing Madhure Temple Road(part of the KRDCL road project) falls under the area earmarked to be designated as Greater Hesaraghatta Conservation Reserve. As per a High court, the area under dispute should not be altered.

Speaking about the move, Deepanjali from Voice of Sarjapura, said. "We have very few fully-grown trees, trees that are getting planted do not survive. It is imperative that the existing trees must survive. But, the Forest department is doing whatever is convenient for them instead of saving as many trees as possible."

In addition, she added the tenders for the translocation of the trees should have not been published in the public domain and there was a lack of transparency in operations. She noted that only the axing of trees is taking place while the public is kept unaware of the actual number of trees being translocated.

She also questioned the Tree Officer's decision to place responsibility on KRDCL, "Why would a KRDCL responsible for road development care about the conservation of trees?. It is very irresponsible for Tree Officer to make such statements."