'Delhi doesn't need beautification but strength to breathe'

Residents on Sunday continued their protest against cutting of trees under the redevelopment project in Delhi's Sarojini Nagar, Nauroji Nagar and Netaji Nagar areas.

In wake of the ongoing protest, environmentalist Vimlendu Jha called the whole situation 'unfortunate' saying the city at present doesn't need beautification but the strength to breathe.

"It's an unfortunate situation. Look at the air quality of the city. Almost 80 people are dying every day due to the toxic air here. Rather than creating long-term solutions for this, the Government is cutting down 17000 trees in the name of development. This is illogical," Jha told ANI.

He added, "Our only appeal to the government is to create buildings 'with trees' not 'on them'. Although legally it is allowed to cut 1 tree in place of 10 trees, but now the situation is not about legality but morality."

Jha further accused NBCC of violating rules, saying it hasn't done the compensatory afforestation as promised and the budget allocated for it is never used for the environment.

Speaking about the same, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said, "The state government should look into the matter. Forest department & Environment department have to look after all the environmental concerns."

"Earth is the only place where we can live and trees give us oxygen which is our pre-requisite to live. Stop being dumb. Stop cutting trees. Here we are hugging the trees because we love them. We can't survive without them," said one of the protestors Anuragini.

In order to save cutting of trees under the south Delhi redevelopment project, a protest was started by locals in the national capital on Friday night. Held under the "Delhi Trees SOS" campaign, the protest was called to aware people about the redevelopment project and urge the government to avoid cutting trees for the same.