Plan to plant trees on Shivalik Hills

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

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Tribune News Service

Bathinda, June 14

The government will plant trees on the Shivalik Hills to compensate for the trees cut for the broadening of roads on at least 14,000 hectares across the state. The forest cover in the state is merely seven per cent.

Dr Kuldip Kumar Lomis, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, said “There is very little space for planting trees on the land acquired for the broadening of roads. Therefore, we will plant trees in the forest reserve area, near canals and the Shivalik Hills.”

Lomis said, “With the traffic increasing rapidly, we have no option, but to cut trees to widen the roads.” He further said the provision for land acquisition for roads did not mention replanting along the roads.

“At the moment, we have to compensate for the trees cut on 3,000 hectares. We have already compensated for over 7,000 hectares,” he said.

Expressing concern over the depleting tree cover, Chunni Lal Bhagat, forest minister, said, “We have chalked out an elaborate plan to plant a large number of trees in July. The last two biennial reports of the Forest Survey of India state that the green cover has increased from six per cent to seven per cent. We have passed instructions to plant trees along the roadsides, wherever possible.”

The government needs to plant a lot of trees as the state is set to lose a lot of its tree cover in the near future. The Bathinda district will lose at least 37,000 trees in five different projects. Nearly 23,000 trees will be cut on the Bathinda-Barnala section; 7,485 on the Goniana-Bathinda section; 4,687 on the Bhawanigarh-Kotshamir road; 1,311 on Mansa-Talwandi road; and 98 on Bathinda-Malout road.

The broadening of NH-15 in the state from Fazilka, Muktsar, Bathinda, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Tarn Taran and Amritsar will involve the cutting of at least 89,018 trees.

Sanjeev Tewari, Divisional Forest Officer, said, “At least 33,000 trees are expected to be cut on the Bathinda-Amritsar road, passing through the Ferozepur division.”

More trees will be cut during the widening of Jalandhar-Moga road; Moga-Barnala road; Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur road till Himachal border; Chandigarh-Ludhiana road; Kharar-Kurali road; Ropar-Phagwara road; and Ladowal Bypass, linking National Highway-95 with NH-1.