School-children protest plan to fell 2000 Zoo trees
Patna,(BiharTimes): Braving high temperature Tarumitra Girls from Mt Carmel School came out on the Bailey Road on Friday to protest against the proposed plan of felling 2000 plus trees in Patna Zoo. After reading in the local newspapers on Friday, the students took to the road with wide array of placards urging the Chief Minister to intervene and stop the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to implement its plan of cutting the trees.
Student of Class-IX and leader of the group Smriti said that the trees
easily become first victims of development. While the trees supply
fresh air to three million people of Patna, it was unjust to cut them
for a few hundred passengers to take flights.
Fifty students from Visakhapatnam on a visit to the Tarumitra
Bio-reserve in Digha joined the Patna students to make the human
chain. UN student ambassador Sudeeksha of DPS, Vizag expressed hope
that the Chief Minister would handle the sensitive matter positively.
She contacted Green Peace to organize an International campaign to
protect the Patna trees.
According to Kanchan Pathak, Press Secretary of Tarumitra, on the condition of anonymity, one of the Pilots told the students that proposed felling will not help the landing of planes. Flying over Gandhi Maidan from the East, the pilots have to negotiate very
carefully the tall tower of the Secretariat. The trees stand much
lower than the tower and even the Hajj Bhavan. “Felling of trees
is sheer Bakwas” said the man.
Smriti and companions earlier met the Chief Minister on World
Environment day and requested him to allot a thousand acres of land
emerging from River Ganges as a Green belt for the breath-choking
metro. “We have counted over a hundred and fifty tall trees in this
piece land under the control of the Irrigation department. All they
have do is to notify this area as a green belt for the coming
generation” said Smriti.
The students also said that they were contacting the students in other
schools and colleges to raise their voices before it was late. They
also contacted JD(U) leaders who have been busy planting trees in the
past year.Some of the trees slated to be cut are very rare trees.
It may be mentioned that Tarumitra students organized a campaign
against the felling of the same trees in August 2010 successfully.
Students of DAV and other schools voiced the chorus together which
made the Chief Minister to announce that the airport would be shifted
out of Patna.
The proposal to chop over 2000 trees within premises of Patna Zoo should be squashed with full force. These trees constitute the lungs of Patna providing it with vital oxygen. Nitish ji should look into the matter and exercise his power to stop this idea of mindless felling of trees.
