78 age-old trees near Gandhi Ashram axed for road widening

Nagpur: While the cash-strapped state government has no funds to plant trees under the Vasantrao Naik Harit Maharashtra Abhiyan, it is felling hundreds of trees for road widening — even Mahatma Gandhi’s land Sevagram has not been spared.

Protests marred felling of 78 over 80-year-old trees were planted on Wardha-Sevagram road during Gandhi’s stay in ‘Bapu Kuti’ in the 1930s & 40s. The public works department (PWD) felled the trees on Saturday for widening the road from existing 10 to 14 metres.

Murlidhar Belkhode, a Gandhian and president of Nisarga Seva Samiti, Wardha, said, “In the 8km stretch from Circuit House to Sevagram ashram, 78 trees were felled. These trees were planted on the appeal by Mahatma Gandhi and could have been saved by proper road planning.”

“Over 200 more trees are to be felled but we want maximum trees be saved by widening the road from one side so that trees on other side could be saved. PWD officials say the road is under the development plan and felling permission has been granted by tree officer,” Belkhode said.

The road doesn’t have heavy traffic but is being expanded under hybrid annuity mode (HAM) from Wardha-Sevagram-Samudrapur-Girad-Umred (state highway-326) length of which is 93km.

The project cost is over Rs206 crore but it doesn’t include any wildlife mitigation measures between Samudrapur-Girad, which is a tiger corridor between Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) and Umred-Karhandla wildlife sanctuary. PWD executive engineer Gajanan Takey did not respond to repeated TOI calls.

As per the Indian State of Forest Report (ISFR-2019) by Forest Survey of India (FSI), Wardha is among the 20 districts having green cover below 16.5% (as per geographical area). Hence, green cover in Wardha needs to be improved but hundreds of trees are being felled without planting them first.

Wardha district honorary wildlife warden Sanjay Ingle Teegaonkar says trees are being felled at a rapid pace despite Supreme Court taking a strong stand against it.

“Green cover must be preserved and alternatives should be explored to develop infrastructure without cutting trees, the apex court has said and underlined ‘rapid deterioration’ of natural resources. However, the enthusiasm road agencies show in felling trees is not seen while planting the same,” Teegaonkar added.