Despite protests and outrage, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has begun cutting trees in Guwahati in order to expand National Highway 37.
Along the Guwahati bypass, about 2500 trees, including some that are age-old, will be felled.
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) plans to expand the NH-37 from Jalukbari to Khanapara from four to six lanes.
Citizens and environmentalists have taken to social media to express their concerns about the trees, demanding that they must be conserved.
Activists from Guwahati’s Friday For Future India staged a protest on Saturday to protest the “ruthless cutting down of trees.”
Citizens who took part in the protest hugged the trees and formed a human chain to voice their opposition to tree felling.
In the previous two years, around 300 trees in Guwahati and its surrounding areas have been cut down for construction projects, most of which are estimated to be between 70 and 80 years old.
