Trees axed as widening work on Kovai-Pollachi Road begins

COIMBATORE: More than 200 trees between Sundarapuram and Eachanari will be felled over the next few weeks for the first phase of widening of the accident-prone Coimbatore-Pollachi Road. While environmentalists have been strongly opposing the felling of trees, daily commuters welcomed the move to begin work on the project to turn the 26km stretch road into four-lane.
Officials attached to the state wing of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) have begun felling the trees between Sundarapuram Junction and Eachanari Temple, a 2.6km stretch. "The stretch is hardly seven to 10m wide right now. We will expand it to 15.7m wide four-lane road with a shoulder area of 1m each on both sides for pedestrians," said an engineer attached to the highways department.
The department had done a survey last year to identify the space required. "The minimum width required to create a four-lane road is 15.7m. We have successfully sought permission to fell the trees that fall within the space earmarked for the project," he said. "There are also more than 100 electricity posts and poles, which the state power utility Tangedco has agreed to remove," the official added.
The remaining 23.5km stretch between Eachanari Temple and Pollachi Outer-ring Road will be widened by the Central wing of the NHAI. On this stretch, as many as 2,000 trees and electricity poles have to be removed from both the sides of the road. "We have sought permission from the revenue divisional officer and district collector to fell the trees. Once it comes through, we will commence the work," said NHAI project director Ganesh Kumar.
Environmentalists, meanwhile, said the project poses a threat to the biodiversity of the district. "Officials will cut even those trees that do not fall under the project area. For instance, though the plan was to expand the road 15.7m wide, officials felled trees located 20m-22m away from roadside when they expanded Marudhamalai Road," said the president of Nature Conservation Society, N I Jalaluddin.
"Pointing out that there are many tamarind and thoonga vaagai trees on the stretch, Mohammed R Saleem of Environment Conservation Group said, "If they fell the trees many birds and reptiles that inhabit there will disappear, besides posing danger to our biodiversity."
However, daily commuters between Pollachi and Coimbatore were a relieved lot. "Presently, it takes more than one hour to cover the 26km stretch. Since the road is too narrow, the stretch often sees road accidents," said Pollachi-based IT employee, C Vishwanath.
Residents had in the past held many protests, demanding widening of the road, to curb the number of accidents on the stretch.