With Assam government moving forward on designs to build a new bridge over the river Brahmaputra connecting North Guwahati and Guwahati, hundreds gathered to form a human chain on Sunday morning to campaign against tree cutting for the project. Senior citizens and children gathered outside the Sankardev Park in Machkhowa area of Guwahati with banners reading “Save Trees and River Front”, “Who will Save Our Future?”, and “Don’t be Greedy – It’s Time to Save Greenery”. A protester said that the administration is planning to cut about 250 trees along the riverfront for bridge construction.

“We have no problem with the government building a bridge, but the approach road that goes through this park and ends behind the Sonaram Higher Secondary School is filled with trees, some are as old as 100 years. I remember seeing them this big in the sixties, when I was a school student. If you build a bridge passing near this park by cutting 200-250 trees, you would be destroying the environment,” said retired Colonel Ramen Choudhury, a local resident of Bharalumukh, Guwahati.

“So many of us come to this park for our morning walk, and you would not find such an environment close to the riverside in any other part of Guwahati. The trees are home to bird species and small animals too,” he added.

Earlier in February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone of the proposed six-lane bridge over the Brahmaputra, which upon completion would reduce travel time from south bank to the north bank of the river from 90 minutes to 15 minutes. The bridge would start from Bharalumukh in Guwahati on the south bank and end at NH-31 near Gauripur junction on the north bank.

“The state government has never taken public opinion for such development projects. Stakeholders are never consulted. We are thinking of filing a PIL in this regard, but we are running out of time. By the time we take it up legally, they might already cut down the trees,” said another protester.

Sources said a lot of trees were cut during the construction of the Guwahati passenger ropeway this year, also thought to be India’s longest river ropeway to be soon operational from Kachari Ghat of Panbazar on the south bank to the northern bank of Dol Govinda Temple.

“They had chopped off trees at the Kachari river bank site to build the ropeway, and it brought down the nests of Indian Ringneck parrots – some 150 chicks fell off from the chopped trees, and were taken away by forest officials,” said one of the protesters on condition of anonymity.

The committee of locals who led the campaign demand that the government should redesign the project in such a way that the existing Sankardev Park and Azan Pir Park along the Brahmaputra riverfront and the Bharalu basin can be saved from destruction. The locals also want the government to appoint a technical committee with stakeholders from different fields to sit together and find a solution.