Pune tree cutting: First public hearing sparks heat, people object to presence of consultant on dais

However, the PTA that has been set up by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) said that the person was invited to make a presentation on the project and explain the efforts to restore the ecosystem alongside Mula and Mutha river that passes through the city.

The authority had declared that it would be holding a public hearing for three days from May 8 and had invited all those who had raised objections to the proposal. Most of the people, who took the lead in the recent protests against cutting trees for the project, participated in the public hearing.

Activist Sarang Yadwadkar criticised the presence of the consultant’s representative on the stage for the hearing. Soon after the hearing, Yadwadkar and others questioned the civic administration on the issue but were unhappy with the reply.

Chief engineer Srinivas Bonala clarified that the civic body along with the consultant representative had planned to give a detailed presentation on the issue, but the PTA did not allow it to take place since it was a public hearing.

Earlier, most of the participants appealed to the PMC to not go ahead with the RFD. “The trees are being buried by the dumping of debris. The habitat of many micro-organisms, birds, and animals is being destroyed,” said Yadwadkar.

Gurudas Nulkar, a member of Ecology Society who is also the professor and director of the Centre for Sustainable Development in Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, raised objections to the absence of a botanist, ecologist or river scientist in the panel set up to hear the public’s concerns.

“Any new embankment in the river is going to be an artificial one as against the current situation,” he said, and added that the civic administration has been saying that the list of trees to be chopped down includes mostly foreign weeds but they have forgotten to mention any efforts to remove water hyacinths.

Shailja Deshpande of ‘Jeevitnadi’ said that the project will destroy the riparian zone. “It is going to be an irreversible loss if the PMC goes ahead with the RFD project,” she said, and added that in the past the flood water did not go beyond the riparian zone whose absence in the future will put lives at risk due to flooding.

Activist Vaishali Patkar said that the PMC has not taken the opinion of experts into consideration while finalising the project. “The ecology of the river has an important role to play in its survival. But that is being completely ignored by taking up the work for the project,” she said.

The riparian zone of rivers is a densely forested area and is habitat to endemic flora and fauna and it is a deemed forest under Forest Protection Act. “Any proposal to cut or transplant trees from the riparian zones will negatively impact the aquatic life, and lives of birds, animals and reptiles many of which are protected species as per the Wildlife Protection Act,” said another person Ravindra Sinha.

Ashok Ghorpade, who conducted the hearing, said that the public opinion will be taken into consideration before a final decision on the proposal to cut trees. “There will be maximum effort to save trees and each person will be given a reply to their objection in writing. There will be no cutting of trees till then. The report of the Pune Tree Authority will be sent to Maharashtra Tree Authority for a final decision,” he said.