BANGALORE: Sankey Tank Road witnessed another round of drama on Sunday. Opposing the felling of trees for the proposed road widening work, residents gathered in the afternoon to show their support for the environment and to send out a message to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) asking them to stop the felling of trees.As a form of protest, two residents, Brikesh and Shiva climbed two trees that are about to be cut and have decided to remain there until 5 pm today. There was a public discussion on the futility of road widening where residents participated and expressed their views. They also conducted a candle lit vigil to mark their protest.The civil society has been organising a series of protests against the proposed road widening at Sankey Tank. At protest marches and on citizen blogs, they claim that there is no necessity for the road to be widened and especially for the trees to be cut. Despite the Palike's claim that they will plant more trees, residents feel that the decision to widen the road is futile and will not lead to a solution to the traffic congestion in the area.On July 14, 2011, academicians and researchers submitted a public statement to S Suresh Kumar, minister for Urban Development, mayor Sharadamma, S Harish, deputy mayor and BBMP commissioner, Siddaiah and other officials describing their anguish at the wide-scale cutting of trees in the past few years. They called the recent felling of 18 trees, a fallout of the misguided short term and inadequate solution to increasing traffic congestion through road widening envisaged by Bangalore’s elected representatives. In their letter they claim that ‘supply-side measures’ like road widening tend to be counter-productive and will only lead to more traffic congestion in the future. They also recognised the quality of trees and pointed out that the trees that were axed were of prime importance to the preservation of urban biodiversity.
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