Sarjapur residents protest felling of trees for road-widening

To raise the issue of age-old trees being cut down due to the recent road-widening work at Sarjapur, an awareness walk was held by Sarjapur Resident Welfare Association (SRWA). The RWA members, who in the recent past have witnessed felling of a number of trees due to road-widening on Dommasandra-Sarjapur Circle, pressured the state government to look at possibilities of replanting and relocating these old trees before the next phase of road-widening is implemented on Sarjapur–Attibele Road.

“The road-widening work is being undertaken by Karnataka Public Works Department (PWD). We became aware of the issue only after the road work started and are now doing our best to save at least the banyan and peepal trees. On the Dommasandra-Sarjapur Circle stretch, work has gone on in full swing and many trees, some more than 150 years old, have already been axed,” said Joy V R, secretary, SRWA.

The volunteers and RWA members plan to submit a signature appeal to the Forest department, PWD and Anekal Town Planning authority to reconsider their decision, and allocate necessary funds, if possible, to relocate, replant and save trees.  Raicy Mathew, another RWA member, said there is a proposal to cut down more than 200 trees on both the stretches for road-widening. “While we are not against the development work, we want to save as many trees as possible and consider relocating trees to lake bunds as there are around 27 lakes in the vicinity,” she added.

The RWA team is in discussion with experts like Illango (tree replantation expert from Chennai) and Vijay Nishant (tree doctor from Bengaluru), who are of the opinion that some of these trees can be saved.