Now, AAP convener against varsity move

CHANDIGARH: First the Students for Society (SFS), then the Panjab University Teachers’ Association (PUTA) and now Aam Aadmi Party convener Prem Garg has called out the futility of making a bricked boundary around palm trees along the way to the PU Student Centre.

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 20

First the Students for Society (SFS), then the Panjab University Teachers’ Association (PUTA) and now Aam Aadmi Party convener Prem Garg has called out the futility of making a bricked boundary around palm trees along the way to the PU Student Centre.

He said: “Across the city, the debate over paver blocks has caught steam, and now the PU has started suffocating an important natural resource — the trees — by laying bricks around them. Have you ever seen a palm tree or any tree with a bricked circumference?”

While PU authorities have maintained a deafening silence over the matter, student and teacher organisations have earlier raised similar concerns.

In its letter to the PU Vice-Chancellor, Prof Raj Kumar, PUTA president Rajesh Gill had urged the authorities to stop toying with PU heritage in the name of beautification.

The letter read: “Our university enjoys the heritage status and has one-of-a-kind architecture and green belts, including very old trees which have always lent a unique ambience to the campus, apart from the cool shade to students, employees and public. We all know that trees need space to breathe, grow and sustain, since the old trees have their roots spreading across a larger space, requiring sufficient space to blossom. However, a drive is underway wherein concrete structures are being constructed around these trees, which could lead to a slow death of them. Perceptible difference is already visible between the trees without such concrete boundaries and those surrounded by these. This move is completely unjustified in view of the fact that the university has a prestigious Department of Botany and we are running a course on Environmental Science, with the objective of creating sensitivity for nature and environment.”

“Moreover, the basic question is whether we can afford to spend our finances on such a wasteful and self-destructive exercise, when the university is gasping for revenue for mere survival,” added the letter.

PUTA LETTER

The PUTA president has written a letter to the VC in this regard. “The basic question is whether we can afford to spend our finances on such a wasteful and self-destructive exercise, when the university is gasping for revenue for mere survival," states the letter.