The upcoming visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Expo Mart in Greater Noida in May is proving expensive for the city’s green cover. In the name of making arrangements for the Prime Minister’s visit to the Asian Development Bank summit, the Greater Noida Authority has reportedly cut down around 125 trees near Pari Chowk in Greater Noida.
This, according to officials, has been done to widen the road that will be used by the Prime Minister for reaching the venue of the summit. According to environmentalists, the trees have been felled without the approval of the district forest department. It is only after the furore by the locals and the environmentalists that the forest department came into picture and had to grant the clearance, that too, “on a back date” to avoid outcry.
According to environmentalists, the trees that were felled stood on the roadside in the green belt area, which is reserved for trees.
“On the pretext to widening an already wide road, they have consumed the green belt area as well. This was done without even changing the land use, as green belts are well laid out in the Master Plans of any city. They were required to change the land use of the area, which could only have been done after inviting public hearing. Their act is illegal,” said Vikrant Tongad, a local environmentalist, who complained about the matter in writing to the District Magistrate and the Divisional Forest Officer.
The district forest department, however, quickly went in a denial mode, claiming that they had accorded permission for cutting of the trees. “The authority had felled just 25 trees of about 50 cm diameter each. We have permitted them to relocate them to a stretch behind where they earlier stood. They were cut because of a high profile visit to the Expo Centre,” said B Prabhakar, Divisional Forest Officer.