KARACHI: City being deprived of trees as work on roads continues
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Sept 27: While the city government has launched its three-month campaign – Mission Greener Karachi – for plantation its contractors busy in development work have cut down about hundred more trees in different parts of the city during the last few days.
The trees are being cut down throughout the city either on the pretext of road widening projects or in the name of security where cameras have been recently installed.
At least eight old trees were cut down along Sir Aga Khan-III Road near Ankelsaria Hospital on Tuesday night while more are likely to fall prey to civic bodies’ brutality in the next few days.
Inquiries revealed that 2.5-feet-dia trunk of old trees have been cut down and shifted on trucks with fork-lifters. No reasons have been cited for the action carried out in the limits of Saddar Town.
Similarly, about 30 more trees along Jinnah Avenue in front of Security Printing Corporation in Malir were cut down during the last couple of days, raising the total number of trees cut down by the city government contractors on this road to 90 this month. Sixty trees were uprooted two weeks back under the road widening project.
The action caused resentment among the residents of Malir, as it defaced the road leading to the airport, Malir Cantonment and Model Colony.
“While this may result in the widening of the road, it would deprive the locality of natural beauty in the shape of greenery which may otherwise take years to develop,” said a resident.
He said that about 100 trees had already been cut down in the past on the other side of the road, depriving this road of much needed greenery.
The Jinnah Avenue was once full of trees on its both sides as a wide green belt was developed by the Security Printing Press as well as the KMC to make the area green and attractive. The central island on the road too has many eucalyptus trees which are still intact.
The city government recently embarked upon a plan to widen Jinnah Avenue. Under the project, the contractors dug up the already repaired road though there were many other roads which needed immediate repairs. Residents regretted that the city government took up work on the Jinnah Avenue which was already in a better condition as compared to other roads of the locality.
There were no major complaints about the condition of the road, yet work was taken up on an emergency basis. They first uprooted the entire left track which was built upon the land acquired from the airport some four years back after an agreement.
Citizens demanded that a decision must be taken regarding plantation of more trees and saving maximum number of the old trees while designing of roads and roundabouts.
