Complaint on tree felling at M’devi in city gets police sympathy.

Complaint on tree felling at M’devi in city gets police sympathy.

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru,   Aug 04, 2018: A call from a senior citizen to the City Police Commissioner that a tree, nurtured by her and her husband for over a decade, was mercilessly felled by a builder on Mangaladevi Road in the City moved the officer, prompting remedial action.

Shobha Nayak, retired nursing superintendent with Government Wenlock Hospital and resident of Subhasnagar, spoke to Commissioner T.R. Suresh during his weekly phone-in programme, narrating her woes. “My husband and I had been nurturing about eight tree saplings which were left abandoned after they were planted on Mangaladevi Road,” she said.

She was shocked one of the trees, which had grown tall, was uprooted by someone, possibly the builder of an apartment complex, she said, and added that they felt as if they had lost their own child. Though it did not come under the purview of police, Commissioner Suresh asked his personnel to meet the couple and soothe their feelings.

After the phone-in, inspector H. Shivaprakash (Traffic-East) visited the couple at the spot. He spoke to the contractor, who allegedly uprooted the tree, and got an assurance that at least four saplings would be planted during laying of interlocks on the road flanks.

Manoj, an optician in the nearby building said,   that the couple  watered the saplings in mornings and evenings. In fact, one sapling was almost dead; but came alive after the couple took care of it. They talked to every sapling, he said.

The couple stated that people who planted the saplings about a decade ago did not take care of them, prompting the couple to nourish them. Retired from service since five years, they recalled that she used to be late to work as she had to bring water on her scooter for the saplings.

Of the eight Badam saplings, five are alive now. Four saplings in front of a commercial- cum- residential building are fully grown albeit with pruned branches while three in front of the adjacent complex are dead.