How did the Garden City survive the massive cut off of trees? While the project of the Bengaluru Metro Rail is underway and citizens are already worn out from the everyday hassle and the roadblocks, there’s no room left for breathing.
Reports say that the city has a total of 10.1 million people and all are devastated due to its choking air with constructions, all over the place, leaving no trace of the trees.
In such a tragic moment, the good native of Bengaluru joined hands together to save their trees from being axed. How?
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Initially, for the Phase-II construction, the BMRC had proposed to cut 225 trees for the line in Kanakapura route near Whitefield. However, knowing the afterlife of such a situation, the citizen consulted a High Court appointed expert committee, and which reduced the number to 115.
"They examined the 225 trees along the 1.5 km stretch and said nearly 115 of them, standing 10 feet tall and aged nearly the same, are fit enough to be translocated," Ram, a local resident said, Indiatimes reported.
On the other hand, to fill up the gap of those trees being chopped off, the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Whitefield, has agreed to transplant these trees on its campus.
A movement was started to save hundreds of trees four months back. Vandana Kaul, a local resident, is the trailblazer to notice the wrongdoing. She then took to social media and asked other like-minded residents to fight for the trees.
Following her urge, local residents came out on the roads to protest in August.
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A thrilled Vandana Kaul told Bangalore Mirror, “I had stopped taking that route because I felt that we could do nothing. I am very glad to hear this wonderful news. I am extremely grateful to Vijay Nishanth and all Sarjapura Welfare Association members for their support. Also, I am happy that the Sri Sathya Sai Institute rose to the occasion and stood true to its motto".
Tree expert Vijay Nishanth told Bangalore Mirror, “The initial plan was to transplant all the trees which will be felled for Metro construction. Since the hospital has given us its nod, we will transplant 115 trees inside the hospital premises".
Locals and a team of saviours started the translocation of the trees on Tuesday.
"We decided only to translocate the trees which had a high chance to survive in the new place. Since all the trees were 4-5 years old it was a relatively easy process," Nishanth recalled.
Another win for citizens and when it comes to a fight to save the oxygen, the goodwill never fails.
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Feature image credit: Amazing India Blog
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