BENGALURU: Even as citizens and experts are against the long list of recent proposals to reduce trees to stumps, the data from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) forest cell and Karnataka Forest Department paints a different picture.
This has not gone down well with citizens, experts and with those fighting multiple cases in courts, who claim the government is hiding information by not adding the number of trees that will be axed for various infrastructure projects. They demand that the tree officer make all applications and responses public.
According to BBMP Forest Cell, between April 2019 to June 2021, 3,855 applications were filed, of which only 292 have been approved for tree felling and 1,828 branches for pruning. Department officials said that they were yet to compile and collate data pertaining to projects.
The Bengaluru Urban division of the forest department, in the same period, has received, 578 applications and permitted 166 cases. The department data states that 1,500 trees have been axed. According to experts who have approached courts against various state government agencies on tree felling, 60,199 trees are being affected because of ongoing and proposed projects.
Of these, 6,316 are for rejuvenation of Singanayakanahalli lake, 33,838 for Peripheral Ring Road, 9,000 for the new institute in BU campus, 2,499 for Jayamahal road widening and 3,299 for KRDCL road works. Dattatreya Devare, an activist said, around 2,000 trees have already been axed by KRDCL for road works, which have not been accounted.
“Earlier, over 8,000 people had come on the road to stand united against the proposed steel flyover. Now, the agencies are well aware that crowding is not possible due to Covid, so many projects are being cleared without proper procedures,” he said.
A member of the high court-appointed tree committee said, “Most of the times we are not aware of the applications and there is no consultation. We are not asked and there is no public hearing. They escape citing staff crunch due to pandemic, but many applications are approved.”