2,000 trees being felled
Around 2000 trees planted under social forestation programme by local forest department and zila parishad are being felled for expansion of Nilphamari-Saidpur regional road to make four lanes amid protest by environmentalists.
There are also some century-old trees among the felled trees, said local people.
The trees are mahogany, rain tree, ipil ipil, eucalyptus, jackfruits, mangoes, arjun, banyan etc. over 1,000 trees have been felled in the last couple of weeks.
Hamidul Islam, executive engineer of Roads and Highways Department (RHD) in the district, said the government has undertaken a project of Tk 225 crore to widen 15 -kilometre-long Nilphamari-Saidpur highway and existing 18 feet width of the road would be as wide as 36 feet.
“We've already completed tender process and work orders. Those were given to Navana Construction and Navana- Runa Builders on August 12 to do the work,” he added.
Zila pasishad and forest department officials said they separately sold their respective trees to different group of buyers at a total cost of about Tk 80 lakh after calling open tender. Of the money, 65% would be given to poor beneficiaries' groups who took care of the trees.
On a recent visit, this correspondent found that day labourers were working to clear trees at Sutipara village beside the road. Zila parishad owned trees are marked with black cross and forest department's trees with red mark.
One of the labourers Hakimuddin said local timber trader Azizul Islam employed them on daily wage of Tk 500.
Contacted, Azizul said he has bought a lot (comprising of a number of trees) of zila parishad trees in open tender and felled them accordingly.
Meanwhile, environmental activists and local people filed petition to Sadar Upazila Nirbahi Officer Md Mamun Rahman to stop felling of the trees but the UNO said he had nothing to do in this regard.
Atwar Rahman, coordinator of a local organization named Campaign for Assistance, Mobility and Promotion (CAMP), said the authorities concerned can save the trees by keeping them in the middle od the road as divider as many countries do this.
Rangpur Divisional Forest Officer Rafiquzzaman Shah said larger number of tree saplings will be planted again on both edges of expanded Nilphamari-Saidpur road.
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