SHILLONG, June 28: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma has allayed fears about destruction of trees and the environment due to the work on the four-lane as a part of the Shillong-Tamabil road project.
The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is funding the project, is sensitive to all such issues and the project was even delayed for six months to ensure minimum damage to the environment besides protection for the monoliths, he told reporters on Monday.
The Chief Minister said he visited the site recently and then started getting messages that the trees not meant to be touched were being cut.
“I was upset and wondered how they went beyond the numbers and so I told the team stop it (cutting) and verify,” he said, adding that he was in Guwahati at that time and had the work stopped as he could not verify.
He later got confirmed reports about the actual position of the trees being cut and he was sent pictures to see the factual position.
He also said the government is awaiting necessary orders from the High Court of Meghalaya, which has asked the authorities to stop cutting the trees till the next hearing of a PIL filed by a city-based lawyer. The Chief Minister had taken cognisance of the photos and videos of trees being cut that went viral on social media last week and asked the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited to stop the work immediately till there can be a better solution.
Forest and Environment Minister James Sangma later clarified that the Cryptomeria japonica heritage trees along the roadside from Upper Shillong to Baniun have been spared except for eight trees, two of them diseased. The felling of the diseased trees was deemed necessary because of a curve and narrow space for the proposed highway.
