Trees felled to widen highway, locals protest
2 min read By Express News Service
KENDRAPARA: Resentment is brewing amongst locals after the Roads and Buildings division lower down many matured palm, neem, date-palm, banyan and different bushes reportedly for renovating the Rajkanika-Kandia highway.
Local residents had planted bushes on either side of the 13-km highway up to now. Narahari Patra of Kandia village stated the highway was a stretch of greenery that offered shade and contemporary air to locals. The bushes have been part of the recollections of many villagers who grew up within the space. However, a whole bunch of bushes, aged greater than half a century, are being chopped all the way down to widen the highway. It can also be being alleged that many bushes are being felled unnecessarily, he stated.
Sources stated earlier, a whole bunch of bushes have been lower down for widening the 50-km lengthy Kendrapara-Chandabali highway. Though villagers raised objections, their grievances fell on deaf ears. Sudhanshu Parida, a neighborhood environmentalist, stated, “While the Forest division is planting saplings beneath numerous schemes yearly to make villages and roadside greener, little has been executed to cease unlawful felling of bushes.
All the cash pumped into such afforestation programmes would go waste if steps should not taken to cease reckless felling of bushes on the pretext of highway widening work and different growth tasks.” The determination to chop down bushes alongside the Rajkanika-Kandia highway would negatively impression the setting of the world, Parida added.
Assistant Engineer of Roads and Buildings division, Rajkanika Jyoti Ranjan Behera stated, “The trees were felled to widen roads to decongest traffic. To compensate the loss, two times the number of trees being axed would be planted as per the guidelines of the Forest department.”
