Grown-up trees from Rawal Chowk being shifted to safer places

By Our correspondent

Islamabad: With an aim to avoid cutting of trees, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is shifting the grown-up trees to other safer places while carrying out multi-million Rawal Dam Chowk project.

According to the details, the civic agency is using a tree transplantation machine that shifts the tree to any other place where it grows in quite a natural way.

This technology has already been used during the construction work on the underpasses in sectors G-7 and G-8.

The method to transplant trees instead of removing them had been adopted by the civic agency some years ago and since then it has been helping in protecting the tree cover in the capital city.

An official informed that Prime Minister Imran Khan had strictly directed the Capital Development Authority that no tree should be cut down during construction work on four mega projects including the construction of Rawal Chowk Interchange, PWD Underpass, expansion of Korang Bridge on Islamabad Expressway, and development of a sub-sector of I-15.

He said the CDA’s Environment Wing is following the best international practices while shifting the trees to other places because it must be ensured that they start growing at new locations.

It is pertinent to mention here that the environmentalists in the past hugely criticised the civic agency for removing a large number of trees to complete the development projects like roads, underpasses, bridges, and recreational spots.

When pollen allergy started playing havoc with the lives of the people during the Musharraf regime the civic agency also removed thousands of trees especially from the G sectors.

The spokesperson of the climate change ministry informed that they have decided that no trees would be cut down during the construction of the development projects.

“We will either make layout plans keeping in view the location of the trees or shift them to other places through tree transplantation machines,” he said.