From our Correspondent
KOKRAJHAR, Sept 26: At a time when the people of greater Bargaon area and conservationists are working to protect the green sal trees in their area, the railway authority has started to cut down thousands of green sal trees in the me of safety of trains passing through the Kokrajhar-Chesapani stretch in Kokrajhar district. Several hundreds of green sal trees have already been cut down without considering the ecological impact.
Discovery Club, a local NGO of Kokrajhar, has vehemently opposed the cutting of green sal trees at Chesapani-Fakiragram by the railway department and said that the authority could have taken other means for the safety of the trains. The NGO said the cutting of huge sal trees in the me of safety of railway could have been discussed with the forest department and environmentalists for the sake of conservation of forest and tural resources as the forest cover was fast depleting in the district.
Vice-president of Discovery, ba Kr. Basumatary in a press release said that they opposed the cutting of thousands of sal trees in the me of railway safety. He said they wanted to draw the attention of the environmentalists and public in general to act against the order on cutting of trees along the railway tracts between Fakiragram and Kokrajhar stations (railway chain age KM 216 - 219). The NGO alleged that the railway authority had already cleared the trees for 15 metres on both sides of the track but they were now going to clear another 15 metres on both sides of the track.
Basumatary said that it was a matter of concern as the authorities were going by their assumptions that these trees were endangering trains but by doing so are they were endangering the ecology. The forest department authorities had already ordered clearing of trees (4,794 sal trees) by taking the provisions of the section 14 of chapter IV of Railway Act, 1989 and have already cleared about 200 sal trees.
He said, “We visited the site today and found that it is wrong to assume that all these trees will trigger rail accidents. We just cannot go by taking examples of some accidents and do harm to our ecology, rather we can think of different sustaible solutions to prevent these accidents. We feel the authorities can think of other viable measures for rail safety operations.”