New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal has allowed the Public Works Department to go ahead with work on the elevated corridor project on the stretch from Vikaspuri to Meera Bagh after the authority gave an assurance that it will save 70 trees by reducing width of the road by one metre at certain spots.
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar directed the Public Works Department (PWD) to mark the 70 trees and to ensure that they are not cut during progress of the work.
"Counsel appearing for respondent (PWD) submit that in furtherance to the directions of the Tribunal, senior officers from the Forest and the Engineering department had visited the site in the stretch of Vikaspuri to Meera Bagh and they have found that just by narrowing the road less by one meter they would be able to save 70 grown up trees.
"Let them do so and these 70 trees would be marked and neither felled nor cut during the progress of the work," the bench said and listed the matter on February 19 for further hearing on the work related to remaining stretch from Meera Bagh to Mukarba Chowk here.
PWD submitted before the bench that a total of 88 fully grown trees can be saved on the entire 12 km long stretch of the elevated corridor project.
The tribunal on January 24, had directed the PWD to show how many trees can be saved by reducing at certain areas the width of the proposed four-lane surface road connected to the elevated corridor, after the petitioner Aditya Prasad had claimed that such a step could save around 126 trees on the stretch from Vikaspuri to Meera Bagh.
The tribunal had said that even if 50 fully grown trees can be saved by narrowing the road, "its worth it".
NGT was a hearing Prasad`s plea challenging clearance granted to cut over 1,400 trees along the entire stretch of the Vikaspuri-Mukarba Chowk elevated corridor on the Outer Ring Road.
