Trees on road pose risk to commuters

Our Correspondent

Hamirpur, April 24

The poor construction planning of road is posing a risk to commuters’ lives. It seems the Public Works Department has not bothered to remove trees before initiating the work of widening and strengthening the Bangana-Dhaneta-Kaloor road.

It is learnt that the government is spending over Rs 10.5 crore, but despite spending a huge amount neither the quality of the road has improved nor has it been widened by the PWD.

Notably, a number of trees standing in the road are not only posing a threat to commuters’ lives but also have hindered the construction of the road. It was learnt that the department had given liberty to the construction company to keep the construction work in progress even without felling the trees. It was learnt that just two months ago the PWD had requested the Forest Department to remove the trees but still not even the marking of the trees was done. It was pertinent to mention here that the trees needed to be marked by the Forest Department and later the forest corporation would be assigned the task of removing the trees. It was apprehended that the whole process would take six months to fell the trees and clear the space for road construction. And when the felling of the trees would be done the road now being constructed would be damaged badly. This will be a waste of money and will add to the woes of commuters.

Parmod Kashyap, Executive Engineer, said the request to remove the trees had been sent to the Forest Department and hoped the reaches of the road would be cleared of trees soon. He said the space near the trees was not touched to enable the felling of trees and uprooting of tree stumps. Extra precautions would be taken to protect the road from damages during the felling of trees, he added.