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Ludhiana: PAU rolls back plan to fell 94 trees amid student protest
The plan was to widen the road connecting the two main gates of the varsity to ease rising traffic congestion
After a strong agitation from the students, the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) on Wednesday rolled back its plan to axe 94 mature trees to widen the road connecting the two main gates.
“We have taken note of the proposal and have decided not to continue with the plan to fell the trees along the road,” vice-chancellor Satbir Singh Gosal confirmed.
To strike a balance between the need for upgrading the road infrastructure and the environmental concerns, the varsity has come up with a different approach instead of doing away with road widening altogether.
V-C Gosal said that the plan was part of a bigger plan to standardise the dimensions of the roads from both the gates and the one connecting them. “The entry road from Gate Number 1 has already been widened to 50 feet. That was the plan for the rest of the two roads as well. However, now we will not widen the connecting road to 50 feet. We will only widen it to 40 feet to ensure that no trees are axed,” he said.
The varsity had written to the sub-divisional magistrate (West) on November 28 seeking permission for axing 94 trees along the road. The permission was still pending.
Recently, when the authorities marked the areas that would be included in the road, the students saw that it also included trees and protested the decision. The students took to social media and pointed to the dissonance between the environmentally conscious character of the university as an agricultural research institute, and prioritising infrastructure over the environment.
The university authorities had cited an increase in four-wheeler traffic as the reason behind road widening. V-C Gosal had claimed that since the campus layout was designed in the 1960s, it only had road and parking infrastructure for cycles and scooters, and changing choices of mobility to four-wheelers was leading to traffic which required widening of the road.
However, the students had contested that the campus had no traffic problem on regular days, only when it was used as a venue for commercial events. They alleged that the motivations were only commercial and betrayed the educational and research mandate of the institution.
“We live on the campus. We don’t see any traffic problem which they are talking about. We only feel the problem when some commercial events are held in the campus, which have nothing to do with the university. This reduces the university to a venue. That is not the priority of a university,” said students’ leader Angrej Mann.
The civil society had also come in support of the students and asked the varsity to remember its mandate as an agricultural university. People’s Action Committee had stated solidarity with the students.
