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Patna:
Nature lovers are concerned over the Bihar government’s plans to cut
or prune nearly 4,000 trees in the Patna zoo for airport safety, as
they say it is the only green cover for the city’s two million
people.
The zoo is formally known as the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park and
houses a variety of trees such as semal, bamboo, amaltas, banyan,
kusum, arjun and putranjiva.
‘It is madness to cut or prune trees of the zoo to make Patna
Airport safer. It would be good to shift the airport outside crowded
Patna and plant more trees to convert the present airport into
another big green cover,’ said Guddu Baba, a green activist
associated with campaigns to clean Ganga river.
He said the trees of the Patna zoo were the only green cover for
Patna residents; so the government should do a rethink. ‘The
government must shift the airport to Bihta near Patna to ensure
green cover,’ Guddu Baba said.
The state government Wednesday said it plans to get a part of the
city zoo denotified so as to cut or prune over 3,700-odd trees in a
triangular area of 17 acres. It has written to the principal
secretary, environment and forests, in this regard.
‘Pruning and cutting of trees are essential for safe landing of
aircraft at the Patna airport. The civil aviation ministry has given
the state government an ultimatum till August 31 to cut the
identified trees that obstruct the approach funnel of the Patna
airport,’ an official in the chief minister’s office said Friday.
Father Robert Athickal, the man behind the Patna-based Taru-Mitra,
an organisation that campaigns for trees, said he has no objection
to some trees being pruned as long as they were not cut down.
‘The move to prune a few trees for a safe airport, which is adjacent
to the zoo, is fine,’ he told IANS. But he was against trees being
cut, uprooted or hundreds of trees being pruned.
Taru-Mitra has planned a march here Saturday to protest the move to
cut trees in the zoo. ‘We will also submit a memorandum to Chief
Minister Nitish Kumar, seeking protection of the trees in the zoo,’
an organisation official said.
Much to the chagrin of environmentalists, the government has said it
would plant rose bushes in place of the trees. It has also requested
the environment and forests department to expedite the process of
pruning another 249 trees inside the zoo.
‘The pruning of these 249 trees in the Patna zoo has already
started,’ a zoo official said.
The government initiated moves to cut or prune trees after the
Directorate General of Civil Aviation threatened to declare the
airport unsuitable for big aircraft operations from Sep 1 if
obstacles to the approach funnel were not cleared.
A two-member Airports Authority of India (AAI) team from Delhi is in
Patna and on Wednesday it demarcated the three points that will
enclose the area in the zoo which has to be denotified.
Patel Chowk is the first point while the second point lies along the
road adjacent to the airport. The third point is between the zoo’s
Gate No.2 and Raj Bhavan.
‘We will complete the process of enumerating the trees in this
triangular area in a day or two,’ said zoo director Abhay Kumar.
Arun Singh, a nature lover, said trees of the zoo should not be cut
for the sake of the airport. ‘The airport can be shifted to Bihta,
but trees cannot be planted in a year or two, they take years.
Cutting trees will cause environmental problems,’ he said.
Singh said over 2,500 trees were cut or uprooted in Patna in the
name of widening of roads in the last three years. ‘No trees planted
in place of the uprooted ones,’ he said.
Aneesh Ankur, a morning walker in the Patna zoo, said the move would
increase pollution.
At present the zoo, spread across an area of 34 acres, is home to
over 10,000 trees of nearly 180 varieties, zoo officials said.
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