The Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) is set to file a police petition against a contractor accused of illegally felling a tree at Katharikadavu junction along the Kaloor-Kadavantara road, while allowing him to cut his branches for public safety. Has been.
The felling of a jackfruit tree, which is more than a decade old, had created quite a stir when roadside tree-care traders belonging to GCDA staged a vehement protest and horned horns with GCDA officials and contractor-employed workers. played.
“We are taking the offense on the part of the contractor very seriously. How can he cut down an entire tree when he is only allowed to cut branches? Even the sorting should have been done during the day and keeping in mind the opinion of the people in the neighbourhood. If there was any dispute then further action should have been taken in the presence of police. We will definitely file a police petition against him,” said GCDA president K Chandran Pillai.
Meanwhile, the police have received two petitions regarding the incident. While the traders have filed a petition for theft and damage to public property, a woman employee of the GCDA filed a petition against an office-bearer of the youth wing of the Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayee Ekopana Samiti, demanding that public servants be on duty and verbal. was accused of preventing him from working. abuse.
The police are yet to register a case on both the petitions. “We have asked the women employees of GCDA and the trader to come to the station in an effort to resolve the issue. In the other petition for tree cutting, the police cannot take any unilateral action without obtaining reports from the departments concerned,” said sources in the North Police.
KC Sunish, vice-president of the youth wing of Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayee Ekopana Samiti, and against whom the petition was filed by the woman officer, alleged vested interests behind the felling of the tree. He was among the first to intervene in harvesting and mobilize merchants and the public.
“Earlier in the week, branches of another tree were found to be cut indiscriminately during midnight. When confronted, two women claiming to be GCDA officers had said that they were allowed to prune branches. On Thursday night the workers met again on the same tree and I was asking what they were doing when someone told me that a jackfruit tree had fallen just a few meters away. It gave fruit last year also and was grown by traders in the last 15 years,” he said.
Traders plant many saplings on special occasions and take care of them regularly. Plants are often planted in the memory of their departed loved ones.