The road transport and bridges ministry would not fell trees to expand the Jessore-Benapole road right now and would go for immediate repair instead, officials said.
"We have taken the decision following the six-month status-quo of the High Court regarding the matter," said Roads and Highways Division Secretary Nazrul Islam.
He, however, said the ministry did not abandon the plan to cut down the trees while expanding the road.
"We will visit the Indian part of the road to see how they expanded it without felling the trees. We will definitely try to apply the option and expand our road saving the century-old trees," he told The Daily Star.
He added a delegation would visit India in February and a decision would be finalised after their return. He insisted that the state of some trees was really bad and might cause an accident anytime.
The ministry has now taken up a Tk 27 crore project for immediate repair of the highway since it is a much-used thoroughfare in need of immediate repair, insiders said.
Last July, the authorities took the decision to chop down 2,700 trees to widen a 30-kilometre segment of the highway, many of which stand majestically on both sides of the road for well over a century.
As protests began to sprout from all corners of the country, a rule of the High Court on January 18 put a six-month status quo on felling of the trees.
