Murder, cry Mumbaikars after trees felled for Metro
MOCK FUNERAL Carried out by green activists with chopped stumps
Over 50 residents of South Mumbai along with activists gathered on Friday to perform the last funeral rites of the trees cut for construction of the Metro III (Colaba-BandraSEEPZ) line.
The citizens carried cut branches and tree stumps from Y B Chavan Centre at Nariman Point to Samrat Restaurant at Churchgate in a mock funeral procession. They wanted to continue till the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) office at Oval Maidan but were stopped by police officers.
Ruchir Bansal, a South Mumbai resident said, “The aim was to show to the MMRC that trees are an important part of the city and there is no need to cut so many trees. We wanted to pay homage to our trees.”
In the past many months, the activists have been fighting to save over 5,000 trees which will be affected by 33.5-kilometre-long underground Metro line but following a court ruling that vacated the stay on tree felling after MMRC’s assurance on transplanting, replanting and planting trees, they have been keeping a close watch on the transplantation.
Currently, tree transplantation started at Aarey Colony in the western suburbs.
Surprisingly, MMRC has gone ahead with the transplantation process with local supervisors even though Simon Leong, a Singaporean tree expert (arborist) who has been hired for Rs 21.94 lakhs per month (33,000 US dollars) to oversee the tree transplantation process, is yet to turned up in the city.