Supriya Sule meets CM, wants Metro shed out of Aarey Colony

Two weeks after protesting against the civic body’s nod to cut over 2,700 trees at Aarey Colony, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Supriya Sule met chief minister

Two weeks after protesting against the civic body’s nod to cut over 2,700 trees at Aarey Colony, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Supriya Sule met chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday and requested him to shift the proposed car shed from the area.

HT Image

“We are not opposing the Metro project. We only want the car shed to be shifted somewhere else, so that the trees can be saved,” Sule said, after meeting Fadnavis at his official residence, Varsha, on Friday.

On August 8, Sule had organised a protest along with other activists at Aarey Colony. NCP corporator Kaptan Malik, who is also a member of tree authority, had supported the resolution to cut the trees.

Fadnavis last week supported the axing of trees. “This matter had gone up to the Supreme Court, which has said that what the state government is doing is right. The land where the trees are being cut is not a forest land. With the underground Metro project, we will be able to mitigate carbon footprint to an extent that we would have needed two crore fully grown trees otherwise,” Fadnavis said. “Of the 2700 trees, some 500 trees will be replanted and a few trees will be cut, against which we will plant 3,000 fully grown trees. The state is trying to strike a balance between development and environment. It is a misconception that the government is destroying forest and trees are getting chopped. I am an environmentalist and felling every tree pains me,” he said.