1,763 trees to face the axe for two Karnal bypasses

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, October 12

The state government has started the work to axe 1,763 trees after acquiring land of the Forest Department along the Western Yamuna Canal for the Western bypass project and near Assandh for the Assandh bypass project.

Both the projects aim at ensuring smooth flow of traffic.

As many as 1,037 trees have been axed for the projects, while the work to cut the remaining 726 is underway.

As many as 1,180 trees, including eucalyptus, sheesham and others are to be axed for the Western bypass on the one side of the Western Yamuna Canal. Of them, 880 have been felled.

Similarly, for the Assandh bypass, 157 of the total 583 trees have been axed.

Department sources said due to space crunch along these roads, the process to plant saplings in place of the axed trees would be undertaken at some other place.

Vijender Singh, District Forest Officer, said environment and development were equally important and they were sensitive to the issue of environment protection. “Efforts will be made to minimise the loss of green cover,” he said.

“For every tree axed, we will plant two saplings of eucalyptus, sheesham, neem, etc,” he added.