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‘5,000 trees facing axe for Tricity Ring Road project’: HC puts Centre, NHAI on notice
The six-lane stretch, spanning nearly 19.2 km, will start at the Patiala-Zirakpur light point on NH-7 and terminate at the old Panchkula light point on NH-5
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday sought response from the central government and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the plan to axe approximately 5,000 trees for the Tricity Ring Road project between the junction at NH-7 (Zirakpur-Patiala) and NH-5 junction (Zirakpur-Parwanoo) in Panchkula.
The high court bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Sanjiv Berry also made it clear that on the adjourned date of April 1 the court will look into the petitioners’ demand that implementation be stayed pending the PIL proceedings.
“The project will result in the felling of over 2,000 trees from notified forest land in Punjab, more than 2,200 trees from the Panchkula Golf Course and approximately 1,000 trees from Sector 1-A, Panchkula, and other green belts. These trees are predominantly 20-30 years old and constitute established ecological assets performing vital ecosystem services,” says the PIL filed by 21 odd residents of the tricity, demanding that NHAI be directed to re-align the project to preserve the thousands of trees at stake.
The six-lane stretch, spanning nearly 19.2 km, will start at the Patiala-Zirakpur light point on NH-7 and terminate at the old Panchkula light point on NH-5, helping the Shimla-bound traffic completely avoid the Zirakpur bottleneck. Similarly, traffic from Shimla heading towards Ambala or Delhi will also be able to bypass Zirakpur.
Being planned since 2013, the new bypass will also serve as an alternative route from Panchkula to the Mohali international airport terminal, helping traffic avoid Chandigarh city altogether. This, in turn, will reduce burden on Chandigarh’s major roads like Madhya Marg and Dakshin Marg.
The new road will pass through several villages in Zirakpur, including Nagla, Sanauli, Kishanpura and Gazipur, then along the Ghaggar river near Peer Machulla, forest area and Panchkula Golf Course. From there, it will traverse Panchkula sectors before connecting to the Kalka highway near Chandimandir Toll Plaza.
The ring road project is estimated to cost ₹1,878 crore, with construction expected to start by September and completion expected within two years.
During the hearing, appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Anand Chhibbar also questioned the compensatory afforestation policy while submitting that the trees were being cut here and compensatory plantation was being done 300 km away in Ferozepur near Pakistan border, which would be inconsequential.
He also submitted that alternative routes were available for the NHAI but not explored.
He further sought a stay on tendering process and execution of the project, adding that no subsequent judicial relief or monetary compensation could restore decades-old forest ecosystems, if allowed to be cut.
The plea submitted highlighted how the Panchkula golf course, developed by the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) over approximately 124 acres since 1988, housed nearly 14,000 mature trees and functions as one of the principal urban green lungs of Panchkula.
The proposed alignment cuts across approximately five fairways of the course, rendering its design dysfunctional and requiring complete redesign, relocation of infrastructure and prolonged closure, thereby affecting more than 2,500 registered members, it said.
The green belt along the Ghaggar River and behind Sectors 20-21 Panchkula forms part of a broader ecological corridor, supporting avian biodiversity and migratory bird movement across the Punjab-Haryana wetland network. Its fragmentation would disrupt ecological continuity and permanently damage regional biodiversity.
The compensatory afforestation proposed in Ferozepur, Punjab, cannot restore the ecological functionality of mature, region-specific forest and riverine ecosystems in the tricity urban belt. Mature trees cannot be substituted by saplings, which take decades to attain ecological equivalence and often suffer high mortality, the plea underlined.
As per the India State of Forest Report 2023 (ISFR 2023), Punjab possesses only 3.67% forest and tree cover and Haryana merely 3.65%, both drastically below the national average of 21.71% and far below the 33% benchmark envisaged under the National Forest Policy, 1988. In such a scenario, diversion of additional forest land constitutes ecological regression of alarming magnitude, the plea further says.
The green belt traversed by the proposed highway constitutes the environmental lungs and the natural life-support system for the tricity region of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali. The green belt serves as the sole natural buffer and mitigation mechanism against this pollution caused by vehicular emissions, construction dust, industrial activities, domestic fuel combustion, fire crackers and stubble burning, the petitioners have contended.
