Environmentalists riled over axing of 50-yr-old neem tree on Plaah Sahib road
Insensitive people, who axed a 50-year-old neem tree on the Plaah Sahib road, which is situated close to the Airport road, have invited wrath of environmentalists. They rue that over the past two decades may trees were cut to pave way for development works.
They said people did any fear law. It was an intentional crime to cut the tree.
Members of the Hariawal Punjab, Mission Aagaaz, Ek Ped Desh Ke Naam, Just Sewa Society and others are pondering over whether to proceed strictly against persons, who felled the tree, so that in future such incidents could be prevented.
The tree had grown on the side of a road which did not have enough space for footpath. “The incident is the outcome of fast paced urbanisation and constructing colonies without proper guidelines. Policy paralysis is on display as successive governments passed unauthorised colonies after some years to earn goodwill of buyers. No colony should be allowed to come up without earmarking sufficient space for green cover,” they said.
In 2014, a number of age-old trees were axed by the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) reportedly for construction of flats meant for the Irrigation Department in Canal Colony just close to the Army cantonment area here. Before this, 452 trees were chopped at the mental hospital despite strong protest by various environmental groups.
In 2015, the Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) had announced that saplings would be planted in its schemes to compensate the loss for the green cover due to development projects like the bus rapid transit system (BRTS) and widening of roads. Besides the BRTS, full-grown trees were axed on the McLeod road opposite the SR Government College for Women, Circular Road and in other areas of the city.
