According to Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, 28 trees, including those at Victoria Memorial station, would be cut down for the Joka-Esplanade metro. Park Street and Esplanade station hold the key to the fate of 917 trees.
It is highlighted that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation neglected to submit an affidavit.
In its most recent affidavit to the Calcutta High Court, the Joka-Esplanade metro’s construction, Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), claimed that 28 trees in the Maidan would need to be taken down in order to build the project’s final phase.
The numbers given represent the number of trees that have to be chopped down in order to build the Victoria Memorial Station, for which the forest department has granted approval.
Earlier, RVNL had said that in order to build the three stations at Victoria Memorial, Park Street, and Esplanade, 946 trees in the Maidan would need to be axed down.
The affidavit was presented in response to a public interest lawsuit (PIL) brought by the non-governmental organization People United for Better Living in Calcutta (PUBLIC), which claimed that clearing the Maidan of so many trees would harm both the city’s environment and the Maidan itself.
Ten trees were cut down in Dalhousie Square as a result of a similar PIL by the PUBLIC during the construction of the East-West metro’s Mahakartan Station, despite an earlier estimate by the contractor that 97 trees would need to be razed.
PUBLIC filed a lawsuit in the Joka-Esplanade metro construction case after learning through news sources that 700 trees in the Maidan were to be cut down. Later on, RVNL had declared that 946 trees would need to be cut down.
The petitioner has cited that RVNL did not receive the necessary authorization for tree removal or transplantation in the points of opposition to the RVNL supplemental affidavit served on May 7.
PUBLIC has pointed out that no plan has been presented on how this will be done, despite the affidavit’s claim that the applicant agency will be in charge of maintaining the trees and guaranteeing their survival.
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