A large number of trees on the Mumbai-Agra highway were cut or felled by the contractors over the last couple of years and many more or likely to be cut in near future for works like road widening, the activists said.
A meeting was held yesterday to chalk out a
course of action to prevent the tree felling which was attended by MLAs
Vasant Pawar, Manikrao Kokate, Nitin Bhosale, chief forest conservator
VK Mohan, Swami Sonvidanand, Swami Shripad besides nature lovers who
registered a strong protest against cutting down of old trees on the
highways.
Rajan Datar, leading entrepreneur told the meeting
that about two lakh trees were cut down over the past three years and an
equal number of trees are likely to be cut down over the next year and
stressed the need to plant large number of saplings.
VK Mohan,
chief forest conservator told the meeting that maintaining of trees is
the responsibility of every citizen and not only that of forest
department and urged people to come forward and plant more saplings.