Resident plants 400 saplings around lake, Palike fells them

BENGALURU: Ashutosh Sharma, a resident of Kasavanahalli, had planted about 400 saplings of fruit-bearing trees around Kasavanahalli Lake three years ago. Every day thereafter, he painstakingly tended the saplings and watched them transform into young trees. Then, virtually overnight, the BBMP felled the trees.
"I would spend up to four hours every day watering and tending them," a distraught Sharma said. "They were like my children." It wasn't his first tryst with the callousness of the BBMP, Sharma said. About seven months ago, the Palike, which is constructing a tank bund, uprooted the saplings. "I managed to save them, and I even complained to BBMP," said Sharma, who has also planted trees around two other lakes. "When I got back from Mussoorie (his hometown) this week, I found that all the saplings, which had now grown to five feet, were destroyed by the Palike's earth movers."

The BBMP, however, was unapologetic. "Monsoon will be here soon, which is why we are hurrying with bund-centering work," said T Jagannath Rao, deputy conservator of forests, lakes, BBMP. "If somebody wants to plant saplings on their own property, it is fine, but in this case, it is government land. No permission was taken from us."

Rao claimed it wasn't possible to save the plants since material had to be transported by vehicles.