Union urban development minister Hardeep Singh Puri says no tree would be cut for redevelopment of the Capital.
“No tree would be allowed to be cut in the capital, in the name of redevelopment”, that’s promise which come today from union minister for housing and urban affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri.
The minister was addressing local residents at District Park, Sector 5, Dwarka, after inaugurating “Van Mahotsav”— an initiative of Delhi Development Authority or DDA which involved planting 20,000 saplings across Delhi.
The minister said he has already discussed the issue with planners and architects. DDA had earlier planned to fell 16,000 trees in South Delhi to carry out its “redevelopment plan”. But following widespread public outcry it backtracked.
Blaming AAP government, the minister claimed that the State Government had issued orders to cut the trees, but promised that no new tree would be cut.
He also blamed AAP government for delayed work on redevelopment of Delhi and Metro Phase-4 and said the Centre would speed it up.
According to Puri DDA would plant 10 lakh trees in Delhi in the next two months. The city has several natural heritage spots with 783 parks and 6 biodiversity parks.
Following the initiative DDA planted 10,000 trees in Dwarka today. The region is spread over 5648 hectares of which nearly 20% is used for recreational purposes.
DDA maintains 94 parks in Dwarka and it has so far planted 50,000 trees of various indigenous species and plans to plant an additional two lakh trees by the end of this year.
DDA proposes to plant 10 lakh trees across Delhi in DDA Parks, biodiversity parks, Yamuna flood plains, vacant spaces, along roadsides and on land proposed for compensatory afforestation.
Indigenous species like Neem, Jamun, Arjun, Peepal, Gulmohar, Amaltash, Kadamb, Sheesham etc. will planted.
Anil Baijal, the Lt. Governor of Delhi; Parvesh Verma, local MP; Udai Pratap Singh, Vice-Chairman DDA and hundreds of representatives of nearby RWAs participated in the event.
The DDA agreed to plant saplings in vacant plants following a complaint by Ramesh Mumukshu, General Secretary of Sector 16B Janta Flat RWA. Mahesh Gupta, General Secretary, DDA SFS Sector 5 RWA, urged the officials to look into the problems created by the Palam drain.
Utilising the opportunity the office bearers of RWA had planned to take up all their outstanding issues with the authorities, specially the senior DDA authorities, but failed as the officials left hurriedly after the scheduled function.
