Road transport and highways ministry officials on Monday said work on packages one and two of the Dwarka Expressway will start within a week after receiving an official communication from the Delhi government regarding their approval for removing and transplanting trees that fall in the project alignment.

Last Friday, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had approved the shifting of 2,675 trees almost 1.5 years after the file was sent to his government by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The Delhi government had strong reservations about the proposal as it involved felling of almost 18,000 trees, which it felt would badly impact the green cover in west Delhi.

“The work for package one has already been allotted and bidding for package two is complete. As soon as the permission comes, work will started within a week’s time,” said senior ministry, requesting anonymity.

Officials also said that they will look into details of the permission as to how the Delhi forest department had calculated that only 2,675 trees need to be transplanted as their request was to fell 18,000 trees. “The permission could be pertaining to a specific piece of land or a formula for calculating transplantation, but things will become clear once we get the order,” an NHAI official said.

After a lot of discussion and debate, the Delhi government asked the highway ministry and NHAI to ensure that majority trees that were proposed to be cut, are transplanted and land made available for compensatory forestation. Officials privy to the matter said that it took a lot of convincing to bring the Delhi government on board for the project.

In a letter written to the Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on February 17, the Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari wrote that there was need to strike a balance between developmental activities and protection of tree cover in the country.“The issue of congestion in Delhi city is causing damage to all living beings, including trees. In order to make the city livable, we need to decongest the city on one hand and increase the green cover on the other hand. In case, forest department of Delhi wish to take up transplantation of all trees on project alignment, my ministry would provide necessary funds for the same. In this background, I would request you to (consider) the matter at your level and grant permission for transplantation/ afforestation on top priority,” Gadkari wrote.

The Dwarka Expressway connects Mahipalpur in Delhi with Kherki Daula in Gururgram and comprises four packages. Package one and two—roughly 10km—are in Delhi and the other two are in Gurugram. The fate of the Delhi corridor had been hanging fire for the last two years for want of permission to fell trees. It was in the backdrop of this letter, and an offer made earlier by the NHAI on December 27, 2018, that Kejriwal government last Friday agreed to permit transplantation of 80% of 2,675 trees and allowed felling of the rest 20%.

The NHAI would need to plant 10 times the number of trees that are shifted or removed.The NHAI in its proposal had agreed to translocate 10,149 trees and 42.12 hectares of DDA land was made available for this. It also agreed for making available 81.75ha of DDA land and 10 ha in Yamuna flood plains for compensatory afforestation.The NHAI had also said that it plans to start the transplantation in February, 2019, and wanted the Delhi forest department to take early action on the matter.Gururgam MP Rao Inderjit Singh said that this was a positive move. Delhi government could not be reached for a comment.

First Published: Mar 05, 2019 04:11 IST