LT. GOVERNOR'S STAND ON TREE FELLING ON RIDGE BAFFLING

With heightened pollution levels becoming a cause of immense worry in the national capital, the Lt. Governor VK Saxena has ignited another debate with his affidavit in the Supreme Court regarding felling of trees in the Ridge area.

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Saxena has stated that while clearing a project in February for a medical facility which entailed cutting of 600 trees, he was not aware that permission from the court had to be obtained for such an action. The Lt. Governor who is also the head of the Delhi Development Authority, along with other senior functionaries, can face action if the Court decides to initiate proceedings against them. His affidavit to the court is something which implies that the constitutional head of the Delhi government was unaware of the rules and regulations and has in the process infringed the law. The Ridge is the lung of the city which is facing enormous problems arising out of increasing population, more vehicles and stubble burning in the neighbouring states. Over the past four decades, the Ridge cover has been diminishing with so many buildings coming up in the forest area. There are two distinct stretches of the Ridge, one which commences from the Delhi University till the Baraf Khana Chowk and the other from Pusa Road till Dhaula Kuan. Jagmohan as the Lt. Governor of Delhi in the early 1980s in the name of sprucing up the Ridge, cleared it of bushes and thickets that were an integral part of the flora fauna. Subsequently barbed wire fencing was done but it did not halt the tree cover denudation. The stretch near Delhi University is not what it used to be earlier and while widening the road from the Hindu Rao hospital towards Rajpur Road near the Civil Lines zone MCD office, many trees we