Many people, who have been staying in Pune for more than 15 years, will agree that Pune is not the same anymore. The city with a green blanket seated in the laps of hills has lost its old charm to the evils of development in the last few years.Remembering the old Pune roads, many will agree that roads like Ganeshkhind Road, Karve Road, Sinhagad Road, Jungli Maharaj Road, Fergusson College Road, etc., have lost their green cover.
According to Sanskriti Menon, programme director of Centre for Environment Education, “We are losing out on our environment and we are replacing all old, big and indigenous trees by the ones like Ashoka and show trees that provide no shade or natural beauty. All the places look like manicured gardens.’’
The city has also lost its natural diversity as most of the roadside banyan and other trees have been replaced with gulmohar or gliricidia trees, thus reducing the diversity.
Environmentalist Erach Bharucha said, “Till 2000 or so, Pune had several roads lined by cool canopy of banyan trees. But we lost most of the green cover because of road widening projects. This could have been done without cutting the huge trees, but now, I think it is more important to look at what can be done to save the remaining green cover.’’
“The remaining green patches need to be preserved. If there has to be road widening, a lane for two-wheelers can be constructed outside the tree line and the four-wheelers can be allowed to move in the middle lane, rather than cutting these long standing trees’’, Bharucha said.
