The Delhi high court might have temporarily ruled against the felling of 14,000 trees in the capital to make way for a complex of multi-storey flats and commercial buildings in the heart of New Delhi, but the old question of environment versus development remains unresolved. The fact is that the quarters built for the Class III and IV government servants in the 50s are now hard to maintain. The new plan seeks to make optimum use of the land which will be available after the demolition of the two storey flats while its commercial exploitation will pay for the new housing blocks.
Besides, the Government plan to plant as many trees has the nod of the Green Tribunal. It may be true that culling and transplanting of trees is riddled with a high rejection rate, but in time, the new saplings, too, would grow and provide shade and environmental protection. Civil society activists cannot fully ignore the demands of development. Like it or not, all urban conglomerates are built on what were once dense forests. Thanks to the environmental concerns and the growing menace of pollution, the people as well as the authorities have become conscious of the need to preserve nature as far as possible. But someone has rightly said, “Trees must come after the people, not before them”. The development of the Sarojini Nagar complex is an imperative which must not be put off indefinitely because of overblown concerns about trees, especially when an equal number are to be replanted in the same area.
