Not Emperor Ashoka’s enemy!

“Don’t mistake me. I am not an enemy of the Great Emperor Asoka,” says Dr S T Ramesh, Director General and Inspector General of Police, Karnataka Government in mid-May this year. He agreed to meet after I “SMSed” my request for an audience with him to discuss the “failing law and order” situation on National Highways while traversing through Karnataka, which he and his team police. For a while, I could not get the drift of his comments. What has Asoka got to do with him or National Highways?

“Permit me to explain,” he requests. I oblige. Ramesh was on the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways’ Panel on Road Safety until recently. He was of the firm opinion that trees on both sides of highways are a big obstacle causing accidents. So, he was giving expression to the agitation of some group or other who were opposed to cutting trees to widen roads. “How can you widen roads, if some trees cannot be felled down?” he asks pointedly.

Now I get his “Asoka” moment. At school, we learnt that the Great Emperor Asoka planted trees on roadside and he was lauded for that developmental work. Nobody doubted – or will – the brainwave behind the ‘plant tree’ movement of those days. But, the ex-cop from Karnataka simply cannot see eye to eye with those who oppose tree cutting for highway development.

His line of argument is simple. Forget about felling trees for widening of roads so that today’s heavy movement of commercial vehicles ferrying goods to various parts of country. Ramesh goes to the extent of saying trees are one of the “major causes” of highway accidents. “Not every stretch of national highways is four or six lane. Put it differently, a major length of national highways are just dual carriageways and with decades old trees on both sides. Today, the vehicle sizes have also undergone changes. They carry more,” adds he. It is no secret that road has come to dominate even for long haul, causing heart burns to the railways, a government monopoly.

Ramesh is not alone in voicing his demand to fell trees. Prashant Gawasane, Project Director at National Highways Authority of India at Mangalore, joins the chorus. Don’t mistake them for anti-nature campaigners. They are as good a development strategists as you and I. As our Leyland truck, ferrying granules from Bangaluru to Mangalore is passing through NH 48, I am witness to highway expansion most of the time. Massive tree trucks, cut in large pieces are lying on the roadside for transportation out of the place. Road levelers are working as early seven in the morning. Two lane highways are being turned into four or perhaps six lane highways. Good, we will all agree. If NHAI’s Gawasane is to be believed, tree displacement is the second biggest challenge before him next only to land acquisition.

“What do they expect me to do? They certainly appreciate road expansion. But put a condition that trees if they to be cut, should be uprooted and planted elsewhere. What can we at NHAI do? We are not into tree plantation. The state government has to make provision for such things because afforestation falls under its jurisdiction,” explains Gawasane in his office in the heart of Mangalore hardly a few kilometers away from Mangalore port.

Reverting to ex-cop Ramesh’s tree-as-the-cause-for-road-accident, it appears he is not off the mark. On my journey from Tata Nagar in Chattisgarh to Ludhiana in Punjab with steel wire rods on the Tata truck we were moving via Ranchi in mid-February. Having passed through the capital of Chattisgarh, suddenly I notice a tree in the middle of the highway, left untouched. Since Pandeyji travels in the same route always, I could not help looking at him seeking explanation. “It is a big challenge to veer our trucks around. We also don’t know why this has not been felled down so far,” says he.  At the nearest dhaba where he halt for a tea-break, other heavy commercial vehicle drivers echo the same sentiments. Catching hold one of the contractors en route supervising the expansion project, I politely ask him about the tree-in-the-middle-of-the-road syndrome. He throws up his hand in despair and sneaks out.  Such things lead to accidents mostly in the night time due to lack of adequate lighting on the highways.

What Asoka, the Great, did in his time has little relevance to us today. Those days, trees provided shade to travelers on foot. Perhaps to horse riders as well. There were no motorized vehicles moving on those passages. Today’s situation is totally different. Roads, it is rightly said, changes the landscape of thousands of villages through which they pass through. Road building exercise provides massive employment opportunity and helps trade in a big way.

Development comes at a cost. Let’s accept this fact. Let’s not miss the forest in search of trees.

NOTE:

This Chapter was part of 10,000 KM on Indian Highways published in November 2011. 

To know more about this book, visit www.10000kmonindianhighways.com

Mr S T Ramesh has retired since then.