The following letter was just now handed over to the Commissioner of MCC.
To
The Commissioner, Mysore City Corporation
Mysore
REQUEST FOR MOST IMMEDIATE ATTENTION
Subject: TREE-FELLING AND ROAD WIDENING
Sir,
1. Mysore is a Heritage City. The heritage of Mysore is not only in its beautiful buildings and the culture of arts-and-crafts and dance-music-drama, but also in its planned avenues with shade and flowering trees, parks with trees, and lakes.
2. However, "trees which provide shade, mitigate the extremes of climate, render aesthetic beauty, purify the polluted atmosphere, and mute the noise, have been one of the first casualties of pressure on space in our cities and towns". The text in quotes is reproduced from the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976. According to one estimate, Mysore City has lost around 2,000 trees in the past four years, many of them roadside trees.
3. We understand that many roads within the area of Mysore City Corporation are being widened, and as a consequence, hundreds of trees are earmarked for clear felling. We object to this on grounds of environment, particularly in terms of Article 48A and Article 51A of the Constitution of India that require the State and the individual to protect and improve the environment, and preserve our rich heritage.
4. We do not deny the need to create urban infrastructure for easy movement of vehicular road traffic which is becoming increasingly congested. However, we believe that the infrastructure needed to be created for a long-term solution is an efficient public transport system that will largely replace the use of private vehicles which cause the congestion. Merely widening roads that will soon get filled with vehicles and bring back traffic congestion, is only a short-term solution that has serious disadvantages such as less space for pedestrians who walk on the road (thus more accidents and less space for vehicles), loss of roadside trees, increased air pollution and flooding during rain. This thoughtless road widening also goes against the recommendations of the National Urban Transport Policy, which calls for "a more equitable allocation of road space with people rather than vehicles as its main focus", and "encouraging greater use of public transport and non-motorized modes".
5. If road widening is being done to encourage tourism, it may kindly be noted that tourists visit Mysore for its heritage which includes the tree-lined avenues, and not for roads on which they can drive at speed without seeing much.
6. With the above background, we request that the following details w.r.t. road widening be made public by posting them on the MCC website immediately:
(a) Names of all roads proposed to be widened, specifying in each case,
(1) length in metres from which place to which place,
(2) widening from what (existing) width to what width,
(3) technical specifications of widening.
(b) Same as above but separately for the so-called Raja Marga.
(c) The officially stated purpose of widening the roads.
(d) The Authority that has (or Authorities that have) approved the road-widening works, with date of approval.
(e) What public consultation (with dates) has been carried out w.r.t. to the road widening works.
(f) Number and type of trees road-wise, for which permission for cutting has been sought from the Forest Department, with date on which permission was sought.
7. We earnestly request that the details above be provided without our having to use the RTI Act. In fact, as you are no doubt aware, according to Sec 4(2) of the RTI Act, "it shall be a constant endeavour of every public authority to take steps in accordance with the requirements of clause (b) of sub-section (1) to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communications, including internet, so that the public have minimum resort to the use of this Act to obtain information", [emphasis added]. Therefore, the details now requested should have been placed in the public domain much earlier.
8. In the meanwhile, we request you to order an immediate stoppage of tree-felling for road widening until the issue is publicly and comprehensively discussed.
Yours faithfully,
Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere (Retd), H.R.Bapu Satyanarayana, Dr.T.N.Manjunath, E.R.Ramachandran, Madhuri Thathachari, Dr.R.Chandra Prakash, M.B.Srinivas, Shankar Sharma, Syed Tanveeruddin,B.J.Rao, N.S.Chakravarthy, Dr.H.A.B.Parpia