The Supreme Court constituted on Thursday a committee of environment experts to suggest an alternative to felling of over 350 trees for construction of railway over bridges (ROB) and widening of National Highway-112 from Barasat to Petrapole on the Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.
“When we cut a heritage tree, imagine the value of the oxygen the tree produced all these years,” the top court said.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde, Justice B R Gavai and Justice Surya Kant asked the committee, which included environmentalist Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment, to furnish its report in four weeks and listed the matter after five weeks.
The four-member committee is headed by Dr Soham Pandya of the Centre of Science For Village, Wardha.
“This case presents usual dilemma between environment degradation and development. Obviously, each situation involves different considerations,” the bench said.
It added that whatever be the method adopted for evaluation of the loss to the environment, it is desirable that alternatives to proposed felling of heritage trees is considered by experts.
During the hearing, the bench told the West Bengal government, “When we cut a heritage tree, imagine the value of the oxygen the tree produced all these years. Compare it to how much you would have to pay for equivalent amount of oxygen these trees produced, if you have to buy it from somewhere else”.
Chief Justice Bobde recalled that when the Nagpur-Jabalpur road was constructed around 4000 trees were cut.
“Legally, the decision to construct the road was upheld by the High Court but loss to the nature was enormous,” he said, adding prima facie it is in the favour of construction of ROBs and widening of the road but if the alternatives can be found then there is no harm in exploring them.