MAPUSA
Assuring to protect the greenery of the beach village, Calangute MLA Michael Lobo said that all the aged trees will be saved while taking up the road-widening work on the main road from Bodkovod junction to the St Alex Church in Calangute.
Lobo also said that trees that are about to fall or bent will be cut and the PWD will carry out the alignment of the road and inform the Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC), panchayat and the local comunidade.
“The 12-member BMC has decided to protect the environment, especially our trees and hills. I am with them. We have already planned the road with all these trees as the divider on the right side towards the petrol pump,” Lobo said, while conducting an inspection of the road along with members of the BMC on Tuesday.
The Calangute MLA said that an area of seven metres for road widening has already been demarcated in the outline development plant (ODP) and the regional plan. “The comunidade has already given us the NOC. Whatever compensation needs to be paid to tenants will be done by the PWD,” he said.
Lobo had moved a note to the local comunidade to issue an NOC to the Deputy Conservator of Forests to cut the trees along the road from Bodkovod junction to the church to carry out the road widening work.
At least three dozen of age-old trees were expected to be axed for the road-widening project. The BMC and the local residents had opposed the move and had also passed a resolution not to allow the cutting of the age-old trees along the road.
BMC member Premanand Diukar informed that the local MLA has verbally assured them not to cut the trees. “The 12-member committee of locals held a meeting before the inspection and we unanimously decided not to allow cutting of the trees at any cost. Even if there is approval to cut the trees, we will oppose it,” Diukar told 'The Goan'.
