Amid a tussle between the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and environment experts over the implementation of the River Front Development (RFD) project, film star Sayaji Shinde Tuesday made a surprise visit to the project area and urged the civic administration to hold discussions with the experts to save maximum number of trees.
Shinde, who is known for his efforts to increase the green cover, also met the representatives of the Vetal Tekdi Bachav Kruti Samiti and extended his support to the agitation against a road link project in order to protect the environment.
“I will do whatever is possible to save trees,” said Shinde. He asked the PMC to prepare a detailed plan to undertake a plantation of 65,000 trees to compensate for the trees that are set to be felled for the project. The film star also asked the PMC to convene a meeting with the environment experts and work towards reducing damage to the environment.
On Monday, 11 environment experts returned their `Paryavaran Doot’ award to the PMC. The award was conferred upon them for their work towards conservation of the environment. Those who returned the award included Padma Shri awardee and former member of National Security Advisory Board Amitav Mallik, who is a member of the Pune International Centre (PIC) and founding convener of the Climate Collective Pune (CCP).
Others who returned their award are Gurudas Nulkar, Professor and Director of Centre for Sustainable Development in Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics; Rajiv Pandit of Jividha; Ketaki Ghate of Oikos; activists Sathya Narayan and Ranjit Gadgil of Parisar; Shailaja Deshpande of Jeevitnadi; Anant Gharat of MY EARTH; Priyadarshini Karve of Samuchit Enviro and Vaishali Patkar of the CCP.
The experts said Municipal Commissioner Vikram Kumar refused to meet them. The environmentalists are opposing the projects citing environmental damage and have decided to create a public awareness campaign, `Chalo Chipko’, to protest against felling of trees on April 29 near the Sambhaji Park.
Meanwhile, the PMC said that the citizens are being misled through wrong information that more than 6,000 trees are going to be cut for the RFD project. “There is no truth in it and citizens should not believe in such rumours,” said Yuvraj Deshmukh, Executive Engineer of the PMC.
The PMC has carried out a survey of the trees and has numbered them, sparking a fear among the experts that all the marked trees will be felled. Deshmukh said, “The public is being misled that all the trees on which the number plates have been put up will be cut. This is completely wrong as the numbering has been done only to make a list of the trees in the area.”
The civic officer said that the PMC has always focused on conservation of the environment while maintaining a balance with development. “The PMC has taken efforts to conserve the environment while planning for the RFD. It has ensured that a maximum number of rare and old trees are not affected for the project while it is planning to transplant the other trees that have to be removed from the area. Also, the PMC has planned to plant more than 65,000 trees of local species to compensate for the affected trees for the RFD. There will be massive plantations of new trees on both sides of the river,” Deshmukh said.
The PMC will conserve 3,142 trees on the riverside and with new plantations, there will be a green cover developed on both sides of the river, the PMC said. It added that it would soon complete the removal of 1,538 trees on the stretch from Sangamwadi to Bund Garden and 1,572 trees for the stretch from Bund Garden to Mudhwa. Most of the trees on these two stretches are foreign species.
In response, however, the environment experts pointed out that the civic administration had itself tabled a proposal to fell 6,000 trees for the RFD. The experts said the data and information shared on the affected trees by PMC and the contractors are different. They added that the information on paper and the actual site is different. “The PMC had assured that no trees would be cut but it has now proposed to cut a large number of trees. There is no detailed plan on planting 65,000 trees to compensate for tree cutting,” said an activist.
