Protest against felling of trees for ‘MLA houses’

BHUBANESWAR: Members of civil society groups on Monday protested against the felling of hundreds of trees for allegedly constructing multi-storey building for legislators inside the existing MLA colony in Unit-IV here.
The protesters staged a demonstration at the construction site and also lodged a complaint with the police to stop cutting down of trees, many of which were planted in the early years of the capital city.
“The general public, including us, should have raised our voices a few months earlier so that we could have saved over 300 valuable trees. The trees felled can’t be compensated at any cost. From past experience, it seems evident that the government never carried out compensatory afforestation for the trees they had cut earlier,” said Sudarshan Das, convener of Mahanadi Banchao Abhiyan. Sources said the city forest division had given permission to the Odisha Forest Development Corporation (OFDC) to cut 870 trees, out of which over 300 trees have already been felled. “The OFDC will get a compensation of Rs 68 lakh to cut 870 trees from the general administration department. With this compensation we would plant compensatory trees. I don’t think the construction of the MLA quarters would have been possible without cutting down the trees,” Josabanta Bariha, city’s divisional forest officer (DFO), said.
When the state has been witnessing serious impacts of deforestation in the form of severe heatwaves and adverse weather conditions, the large-scale cutting of trees has irked residents. “The new residences for MLAs can be constructed at a place where the government need not have to cut so many trees. The government residential colonies in the city, which were constructed in 1950s during the early years of the capital, provide a major green cover,” said Sarat Kumar Sahu, a 78-year-old businessman at Unit-IV market.