Greens up in arms as trees face axe on Mall Road in Agra
Vijay Upadhyay
Agra. Following a massive campaign launched by environmentalists of the town against the 'ecological blunder' orchestrated by the UP Government in the name of building a six-lane highway from the airport to the Taj Mahal, the UP Forest Department has finally agreed to defer the chopping down of trees that line the historic Mall road of Agra.
But local ecologists are not ready to end the campaign yet. They are trying to muster support from noted environmentalists like Sundar Lal Bahuguna, by writing letters, asking them to interfere in the issue. Environmentalists are concerned because the move to cut the trees has only been deferred and not called off entirely by the Forest Department.
The Agra district administration has termed the cutting down of trees as an 'unfortunate but inevitable' move because the roads needed to be widened.
The Mall Road is also known as the thandi sadak, with thousand of trees dotting the sidewalk right from the railway station to Taj Mahal's eastern gate.
The road is directly linked to the heritage of the city, with numerous British-era bungalows lined up on both sides. One of these buildings hosts the office of the Archaelogical Survey of India, which is on the verge of being robbed of the beauty as the road's green cover is being cut down to make way for a six lane road with a view to accommodate the increased VIP traffic.
Interestingly, while the Union Forest Ministry has refused to permit the chopping down of its "protected forestry" as a move to protect the environment around the Taj Mahal, the UP Forest Department has promptly allowed the UP Public Works Department to remove all trees lining the Mall Road, which includes a dense patch of 613 trees on a 100 metre stretch used by people for their morning and night strolls.
At a time when the whole of Uttar Pradesh is facing ecological disasters due to erratic monsoons that almost completely skipped the Agra region, the decision to cut down thousands of trees as old as 40-50 years, is being termed by environmentalists as the worst ecological blunder made by the UP Government in recent times.
Talking to The Pioneer, D.K. Joshi, environmentalist and member of the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Pollution, said that it was a very serious issue as the Government's move could well land the Taj Mahal in the midst of a desert, instead of lush greenery as envisioned by the Supreme Court. He said that he shall move this issue in the High Court as soon as the courts opened after the vacations and get 'this monstrosity with Agra's environment' stopped immediately.
According to the UP Forest Department sources, the UP Government had planned to broaden the Mall Road from the Agra cantonment railway station to the Taj Mahal, in its quest to upgrade the road to "international standards". In the process, it was decided that the road would be widened from one wall to the opposite wall, leaving no space for trees that have been lining the road for more than half-a-century.
Talking to The Pioneer, Rama Shanker Sharma, an octogenarian resident of the Agra cantonment and founding member of the Agra Foreign Tourist Traders & Exporters Association said that a number of these trees had seen the pre-independence era of the road that passes through the Agra cantonment area, when the biggest vehicle to travel used to be a 'Gora Sahib's buggy'.
Even a couple of decades back, he said, the green cover on this road had been a lot dense. If the Mall road was broadened from wall-to-wall as proposed, the green cover on the road shall be destroyed completely and the beauty of the road that attracts hundreds of tourists into taking a walk through the market shall be lost forever, he said. It would damaging the tourism business - the only means of livelihood for people living in the area, he added.
He demanded that the broadening work should be stopped immediately to conserve whatever was left of the green cover, otherwise, the ecology of the area shall be irreversibly changed for the worse, affecting the entire city's environment as a whole.
Agra. Following a massive campaign launched by environmentalists of the town against the 'ecological blunder' orchestrated by the UP Government in the name of building a six-lane highway from the airport to the Taj Mahal, the UP Forest Department has finally agreed to defer the chopping down of trees that line the historic Mall road of Agra.
But local ecologists are not ready to end the campaign yet. They are trying to muster support from noted environmentalists like Sundar Lal Bahuguna, by writing letters, asking them to interfere in the issue. Environmentalists are concerned because the move to cut the trees has only been deferred and not called off entirely by the Forest Department.
The Agra district administration has termed the cutting down of trees as an 'unfortunate but inevitable' move because the roads needed to be widened.
The Mall Road is also known as the thandi sadak, with thousand of trees dotting the sidewalk right from the railway station to Taj Mahal's eastern gate.
The road is directly linked to the heritage of the city, with numerous British-era bungalows lined up on both sides. One of these buildings hosts the office of the Archaelogical Survey of India, which is on the verge of being robbed of the beauty as the road's green cover is being cut down to make way for a six lane road with a view to accommodate the increased VIP traffic.
Interestingly, while the Union Forest Ministry has refused to permit the chopping down of its "protected forestry" as a move to protect the environment around the Taj Mahal, the UP Forest Department has promptly allowed the UP Public Works Department to remove all trees lining the Mall Road, which includes a dense patch of 613 trees on a 100 metre stretch used by people for their morning and night strolls.
At a time when the whole of Uttar Pradesh is facing ecological disasters due to erratic monsoons that almost completely skipped the Agra region, the decision to cut down thousands of trees as old as 40-50 years, is being termed by environmentalists as the worst ecological blunder made by the UP Government in recent times.
Talking to The Pioneer, D.K. Joshi, environmentalist and member of the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Pollution, said that it was a very serious issue as the Government's move could well land the Taj Mahal in the midst of a desert, instead of lush greenery as envisioned by the Supreme Court. He said that he shall move this issue in the High Court as soon as the courts opened after the vacations and get 'this monstrosity with Agra's environment' stopped immediately.
According to the UP Forest Department sources, the UP Government had planned to broaden the Mall Road from the Agra cantonment railway station to the Taj Mahal, in its quest to upgrade the road to "international standards". In the process, it was decided that the road would be widened from one wall to the opposite wall, leaving no space for trees that have been lining the road for more than half-a-century.
Talking to The Pioneer, Rama Shanker Sharma, an octogenarian resident of the Agra cantonment and founding member of the Agra Foreign Tourist Traders & Exporters Association said that a number of these trees had seen the pre-independence era of the road that passes through the Agra cantonment area, when the biggest vehicle to travel used to be a 'Gora Sahib's buggy'.
Even a couple of decades back, he said, the green cover on this road had been a lot dense. If the Mall road was broadened from wall-to-wall as proposed, the green cover on the road shall be destroyed completely and the beauty of the road that attracts hundreds of tourists into taking a walk through the market shall be lost forever, he said. It would damaging the tourism business - the only means of livelihood for people living in the area, he added.
He demanded that the broadening work should be stopped immediately to conserve whatever was left of the green cover, otherwise, the ecology of the area shall be irreversibly changed for the worse, affecting the entire city's environment as a whole.
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