A fully grown tree at Novelty Chowk, which was cut down by an advertisement agency. Photo: Vishal Kumar
Charanjit Singh Teja
Amritsar, June 10
A private advertisement agency, Creative OHH, hired by the Amritsar Municipal Corporation, cut down three fully grown trees at Novelty Chowk here this morning. They chopped the trees acting in advance that these would hide the display of the LED advertisement panel from view after further growth.
The company had hired a worker, who axed a dhreak (Persian lilac) and two Sukhchain (Indian Beech) trees around 11 am. The worker said the job was assigned by the advertisement company to remove the trees as they may hide the display from view after growing further.
Nishant Mittal, owner of Creative OHH, refuted the allegation that their worker axed any tree. “The LED panel was installed with the Ditch machine and the machine damaged some branches of tree which might be removed by workers. Otherwise, no tree has been axed.”
However, eyewitnesses said the company worker and axed the trees with a “datar” around 11 am.
After being highlighted by Amritsar Tribune, MC officials swung into action. Joint Commissioner Hardeep Singh, PCS, dispatched a team of the advertisement wing of the MC to the spot for checking the violation.
“Our team found that trees was chopped by the company. We have sent them a show cause notice and asked to respond within two days. We will take strict action and impose a penalty,” said Joint Commissioner Hardeep Singh.
The MC officials disclosed that Creative OHH had written to the MC about the view of the unipoles being blocked by the trees. The company had asked the MC to allow it prune the trees. The MC Commissioner has deployed a Junior Engineer, Natwant Singh, and gave directions to the company to ask him for the pruning of trees where it required. The Commissioner had asked the company to conduct pruning only in the presence of JE Natwant Singh. However, no MC employee was there when they axed the trees.
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