Delhi: LG approves recommendation for transplantation of 214 & 78 trees for Defence, Railway projects

New Delhi, July 10 Delhi Lt Governor V.K. Saxena on Monday approved the recommendation for the transplantation or translocation of 214 and 78 trees for the Defence and Railway projects in the national capital.

According to the LG office officials, Saxena granted permissions for transplantation and afforestation of 214 trees for the construction of building for the defence project at Tughlakabad and 78 trees for the construction of maintenance depot for Vande Bharat trains at Shakurbasti under DPTA, 1994.

The official said that while the defence project at Tughlakabad involves 2.15 hectares of land area, the railway project at Shakurbasti involves a total of 10.12 hectares of land.

“The compensatory plantation of 2,140 and 780 saplings (10 times the number of trees permitted for transplantation or translocation) for both the projects consisting of species Neem, Amaltas, Peepal, Pilkhan, Gular, Bargad, Desi Kikar and Arjun along with other native species shall be carried out by the user agencies for the two projects. The user agencies have deposited the compensatory cost for this purpose,” the official said.

The official said that the applications of the concerned agencies of the Defence Ministry and Railway Ministry had been submitted on January 19 and February 21 this year respectively.

Earlier similar central government projects like construction of Metro Phase-IV, UER, IIT-Delhi, RRTS, GPRA Colony and Delhi-Dehradun Expressway, etc. had been kept pending in want of permissions by the Delhi government for more than three years in many instances.

“Lt Governor Saxena had expressed deep concern over such delays in projects of National importance that aimed at providing relief to common people of the national capital. Saxena had also underlined the cost overruns running into hundreds of crores that such delays caused,” the official said.

The official said that the Lt Governor had written twice to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal last year apart from expressing his displeasure and flagging the inordinate and unexplained delays, on files submitted to him for approval, after years of requests by concerned agencies being made.

“The LG had raised the issue of files lying without any reason in the office of the Minister of Environment for months together,” the official added.