HC dismisses Amarinder's plea on avoiding felling of trees

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today disposed off a petition filed by Congress MP Amarinder Singh seeking directions to save over thousand trees in Amritsar from being cut for execution of development plans.
A Division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Ashutosh Mohunta and Justice H S Sidhu disposed off the PIL filed by the Amritsar MP.
Amarinder had sought directions to concerned authorities to conduct appropriate mitigation measures in their engineering design construction schedules and techniques to minimise the adverse environmental impact, as most of the trees proposed to be cut are adjacent to boundary walls of buildings and are not necessary to be axed.

A large number of trees were proposed to be cut for widening of roads for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, the former Punjab chief minister said.
He submitted that authorities ought to have identified alternate ways to ameliorate adverse environmental impacts or deviation of roads.