This year, the best way to celebrate World Environmental Day, on June 5th would be for all concerned Mysoreans to assemble near Arch Gate on Lalitha Mahal Road at 11:00 AM on June 5th to protest peacefully against the felling of 123 majestic and beautiful, carbondioxide-consuming, oxygen-giving trees for road-widening. Some of these trees are over 100 years old.
The justification for road-widening given by the authorities is the increasing traffic. By any stretch of imagination, traffic on the roads surrounding this area from racecourse to the Arch gate leading to T Narasipur Road is not heavy enough to widen the roads. It is true that if earlier the number of vehicles were say 50 per hour and it has gone up to 200 on this road, the percentage increase is large. But it does not justify widening the road and in any case cannot justify felling of the trees. It is not that part of the city with high density of traffic moving at high speed like an expressway. Even if for two or three kilometers, vehicles have to move at lower speed to save trees, it is worth paying the price. It is our responsibility to convince the authorities of this fact.
Widening roads to admit more fast-moving cars will mean more exhaust pollution, and cutting trees will remove the capacity to compensate for the increased pollution. Rather than more cars, more buses will transport more people in the same road space, without need to widen the road.
Instead of using JNNURM funds for widening the roads, it could be used for improving the slums of Mysore. This is one example of lop-sided planning when the public is not consulted on the priority of projects.
Environmentalists and those concerned with the livability and beauty of Mysore City need to assemble in huge numbers at Arch Gate on Lalitha Mahal Road on June 5th at 11.00 AM to register their opposition to tree-felling, if the trees and Mysore's ambiance are to be saved. Let us get inspiration from Chipko movement of Sunderlal Bahuguna and rise to the occasion to stop the felling of these trees. Let us also recall a similar movement MGP launched in 90s with the help of students from Sharada Vilas and Maharani college to save the felling of tress around the Race Course.