703 trees to go for wider roads

703 trees to go for wider roads
The Times of India

Bangalore: In a major drive, over 703 fully grown trees in 153 avenues across the city are facing the axe.

The directive from the BCC reportedly follows a request from the city traffic police to fell the trees for road-widening work.

Specifying the number of trees to be axed in each of these avenues, the BCC permit reads, “Roadside trees coming in the way of carriage-way to be removed/pruned is appended’’. Already a week into the tree-cutting exercise, the BCC has uprooted several trees on Vani Vilas Road, Basavanagudi, Cubbon Road and surrounding areas.

Environmentalists, however, find the report baseless. “The internal memo itself is so sketchy that it does not specify location or identity of trees which need to be pruned or cut. It’s as if the contractor would decide on the same,’’ says city-based ornithologist M B Krishna. In his estimate, the city would lose about 19.68 lakh litres of oxygen per day, if these trees are uprooted.