Authorities should decide on tree cutting for road project: HC

The Bombay High Court today directed the the National Highway Authority of India, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Forest Department to arrive at a consensus on whether over thousand trees along the 800-km Mumbai-Bangalore highway could be cut for road-widening.
A division bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Amjad Sayed was hearing an application filed by NHAI, seeking permission to cut 1,307 trees falling in the jurisdiction of the PMC for widening the highway from four lanes to six lanes.
The NHAI approached the court as a May 2009 order of the high court banned cutting of trees in the Pune municipal area.

NHAI argued in court that it was ready to pay money to the Pune civic body for replanting of trees in another area. According to it, the Rs 1,700 crore highway project commenced in October 2010 and was to be completed by March this year. However, due to the ban on tree-cutting, the road-widening at the Pune stretch could not be done.
The high court today directed the NHAI, Pune civic body and state forest department to hold a meeting and come to a consensus on the amount of money that needs to be deposited and if another area can be earmarked for replanting of the trees.

The matter has been posted for further hearing next week.