Make Mangaldai bypass a Green Highway: Lawyers

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MANGALDAI: Finally the proposed bypass that will take movement of vehicles outside Mangaldai town will see the light of the day. The official procedure for acquiring land has already been initiated. According to the approved detailed project report (DPR), the NH-15 will be diverted at village Chengeliapara on the west and will get reconnected at village Dakchaki on the east.

In view of the construction of the bypass, four leading lawyers of Mangaldai Bar Association have raised a unique and praiseworthy demand to declare the diversion or the bypass as 'Green Highway' as per the provision of the relevant policy adopted in 2015. The four lawyers -

Jayanta Deka, Jatin Nath, Nirod Deka and Nayanmani Deka - in two separate memoranda addressed to the Nodal Officer for Public Grievances of NHAI, New Delhi and Chief Engineer, PWD, NH (Works), have submitted four-charter of demands, including the declaration of the proposed bypass as a Green Highway as per the policy of the Ministry of the Road Transport and Highways (MORTH), Government of India, adopted in the year 2015, to issue necessary direction to the officer concerned for preparation of the DPR (Detailed Project Report) to incorporate the matter of translocation/transplantation of mature trees from the land acquired by MORTH for construction of the project, completion of tree translocation process within next four months and if necessary pressing the service of more than one empanelled agencies and incorporation of a plan in the DPR for plantation of indigenous medicinal plants on both the sides of the project in addition to translocation of old mature indigenous trees.

The petitioners have pointed out that MORTH, in order to maintain a balance between the giant infrastructural project and the surrounding ecology, adopted a strategy called Green Highway (Plantation, Transplantation, Beautification and Maintenance) Policy, 2015. Subsequently, this policy came into practice during the execution of several major construction projects in other States like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka undertaken in recent times, including the Metro Railway Project of Hyderabad in 2017 where nearly 1,000 matured tree were successfully translocated and almost all these trees are thriving in the new location.

Meanwhile, talking to The Sentinel, advocate Jayanta Kumar Deka, one of the signatories on the petition, said that after a long demand of the people of Mangaldai town, the government has proposed to construct a 12-km long bypass beginning at village Chengeliapara and passing through eight other villages like Boinaojapara, Saru Thekerabari, Bor Kumarpara, Kamarpara, Mowamari, Gerimari, Baghpori, Bandia and Ondolajhar to get reconnected at Dakchaki.

"The land acquisition process has already begun and the authority under section 3A of Highways Act, 1956 expressing intention to acquire land of the said villages, has issued the notification on July 23 with August 13 as the last date of submission of any objection. Meanwhile, the authority has received only one objection," he added.

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