Poor urban planning to blame for loss of greenery: Experts
Cutting of trees can’t be made up by planting more trees: Environmentalist
NEW DELHI: The delayed implementation of the Delhi Master Plans by the DDA has led to such redevelopment project which demanded cutting of nearly 17,000 trees in Delhi, noted the urban planner and experts. They also observed the authorities have not pre-checked the sites where the cutting was happening.
“The Delhi Master Plans have always implemented in a very poor way by the DDA and they could not have achieved anything that they have projected in these plans hence the unplanned projects such as the redevelopment of seven colonies by cutting these many trees were planned,” said noted urban planner Dunu Roy.
Adding to his statement, Moulshri Joshi, a professor at the School of Planning and Architecture said that it is not a real choice that you have to cut trees to make buildings. “We have always worked on the relationship between the two,” she said.
The urban planners also noted that the lack of planning and the implementation should be blamed for losing the greens in the city. “The planning process earlier never included discussion about the environment, the urban poor and our heritage,” said Professor KT Ravindran, an urban planner and professor of architecture. The experts also said that the authorities have always failed to maintain the environment and reach the concerns of the people regarding the environment. “Whenever such issues are raised by the people the authorities will ask for a probe but its report will never come out,” said an expert.
Slamming the Central government and NBCC, Kanchi Kohli of Centre for Policy Research asked, “A world trade centre, shopping complexes and government training centres. If this is in public interest, where was the public hearing?”. She added that the traffic assessment was done after the project was approved which was a violation. Adding to her statement, noted environmentalist Pradip Krishen said that the idea of compensatory tree plantation has not benefited as the cutting of native trees cannot be compensated.
The issue came up as recently, the government took the decision to redevelop seven such residential colonies where the employees stay. The places included Sarojini Nagar, Nauroji Nagar, Netaji Nagar, Mohammadpur, Kasturba Nagar, Sriniwaspuri and Tyagaraj Nagar.
The Government of India's Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and NBCC Ltd were assigned the responsibility of building the new flats across over 500-acres. Alongside, they were also asked to build a large commercial centre called the World Trade Centre at Nauroji Nagar.