Widened highway awaits plantation of saplings

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, June 15

Three years after around 33,000 trees were axed to widen NH-64 from Patiala to Barnala, private companies are yet to plant saplings of trees to compensate environmental losses. The repeated letters of Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) have failed to make companies start plantation.

“The widening of road was started in 2015 and around 33,000 trees were axed. But till date private companies, including Gawar Constructions, Gurgaon, Patel Infrastructure, Gujarat, and Patel Engineering Limited, Mumbai, are yet to plant saplings. They must plant 66,000 saplings according to the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) norms. Had they planted saplings, trees would have grown to around 12 ft by now,” DFO, Sangrur, Monica Yadav said.

Figures show that out of the total saplings, 33,000 need to be planted on the Patiala-Sangrur bypass, 16,000 on both Sangrur and Dhanaula bypasses, 10,000 on the Sangrur-Barnala road, while the remaining 7,000 at different places.

On trying to contact Patel Engineering Ltd, Mumbai, a female employee disconnected the phone twice after hearing the query. Jyoti from Gawar Construction said the officer concerned was not present in the office while repeated calls on the landline of Patel Infrastructure went unanswered.

Senior officers of the Forest Department informed that according to the IRC norms, companies must plant 660 saplings of trees per kilometre on both sides of the road after axing trees for widening or other purposes.

Since Barnala is around 100 km from Patiala, private companies must have planted around 66,000 trees on both sides of the widened road. But during investigations by the Forest Department, it has come to light that till date the companies have done “some” plantation on the Sangrur and Dhanaula bypasses, while the remaining portion of the road is without plantation.

Yadav had called a meeting of all companies on June 8, but only employees of Gawar Constructions attended the meeting.

“If we take a look at the road, it looks like a desert area of Rajasthan because there is no tree. When the road construction was started, the area had full-grown trees. We do not know who is responsible for it, but the Punjab Government must look into the matter,” said Kartar Singh, a farmer from Phagguwala village.