BENGALURU: The Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has approached the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), seeking its approval to remove 615 trees for setting up Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) at Doddabele and Mallasandra areas.
The request follows a similar request by New Delhi-based Council of Architecture, seeking GBA’s permission to fell or translocate 355 trees on its two-acre office compound in Bengaluru University campus last month for “developmental” works.
As per a notification published on December-24, the water board said BWSSB executive engineer of the waste water management projects in Vrushabhavati Valley Division has submitted an application to GBA’s tree officer/deputy conservator of forest for permission to remove trees on the water board’s Doddabele premises to construct a 100 MLD STP.
“A total of 355 trees need to be removed from the site. The GBA’s forest department has invited objections and suggestions from the public within 10 days from the date of notification,” said a senior GBA official.
The official said the board has also sent a request to the forest department, seeking approval to remove 310 trees at Mallasandra for another 100 MLD capacity STP.
Meanwhile, an official at the GBA’s forest wing said the suggestions have been invited from the public under Section 3 (3) (vii) of the Karnataka Tree Preservation Act,1976. “The responses from the public will be placed before the tree committee, and based on its report, further steps will be taken,” said a senior official at the board.
The Public can give suggestions and raise objections either directly to the executive engineer, waste water management project at eewwmp-vv@bwssb.gov.in or send them to the Deputy Conservator of Forests and Tree Officer, GBA, NR Square, Bengaluru-560002 or to dcfbbmp12@gmail.com within 10 days.