Nagpur: The city unit of Aam Admi Party (AAP) on Saturday resorted to Chipko agitation to protest NMC move to cut 4522 trees down in Ajni Vann for construction of Inter Modal Station (IMS). “The area has more than 7,000 trees and is also known as the ‘green lungs’ of the city. Several environmental activists and citizens of Nagpur city have been raising their voices to Save the Ajni Vann,” said the protesting AAP activists.
According to the notice served earlier by Nagpur Municipal Corporation, 4,522 trees are proposed to be axed from Ajni Railway Office, Railway Mens High School, Kendriya Vidyalaya Ajni premises, Ajni Railway Colony, Ajni Post Office, Ashok Vatika and a private school building for construction of Inter Modal Station. Similarly, 408 trees are proposed to be cut down from the Plot No 4 for construction of new DCP Office, Post Office and a school in Ajni area.
“In 2019, the RCC in its report had said that Nagpur has lost 30 percent (one third) green cover in the last some decades. This is cause concern. And now, axing of such largenumber of trees will reduce more green cover of the city,” AAP said.
Expressing concern, the AAP said the IMS project will be carried out in four phases and around 40,000 trees in total will be chopped off, solely for this project. The notice issued by the NMC informs the public only about the first phase of the project. “The IMS project could be could be set up without cutting the trees or could be shifted to other place,” the party said.
The Chipko Agitation was staged under the leadsership of AAP’s Vidarbha Convener Devendra Wankhede and party’s StateTreasurer Jagjit Singh. Other activists who took part in the agitation include State Joint Secretary Ashok Mishra, National Council Member Amarish Savarkar, Nagpur Secretary Bhushan Dhakulkar, Krutal Akre, Piyush Akre, Roshan Dongre, Surendra Samudre, Ajay Dharme, Prabhat Agrawal, Girish Titarmare, Pratik Bawankar, and a large numbers of other party activists.
The Chipko Movement or Chipko Andolan was a forest conservation movement started in 1973 in Uttarakhand, then a part of Uttar Pradesh, by Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist, who gave the movement a proper direction and its success meant that the world immediately took notice of this non-violent movement, which was to inspire in time many similar eco-groups by helping to slow down the rapid deforestation, expose vested interests, increase social awareness and the need to save trees, increase ecological awareness, and demonstrate the viability of people power.
