A few Senate members in the University of Calicut, who owe their allegiance to the United Democratic Front (UDF), have criticised the authorities’ attempt to cut 2,000 acacia trees from the campus to sell it to Kottayam-based public sector undertaking Kerala Paper Products Limited.
Senate members V.K.M. Shafi, A.T. Abdul Jabbar, and Abida Farooqui claimed in a letter to Vice-Chancellor M.K. Jayaraj that thousands of trees had been cut earlier from the campus in the past two years, but no new saplings were planted during the period. The plan is to cut the acacia trees in phases to enable planting of fruit-bearing trees there. However, the Senate members alleged that the efforts were to fell thousands of trees at one go. They also claimed that a report of the assistant executive engineer against the tree felling was ignored. The trees were being sold at ₹750 a tonne to the company, the Senate members said.
Registrar E.K. Satheesh told The Hindu on Thursday that the trees to be cut had been clearly marked by the company. Fruit-bearing trees would be planted in their place. “There is no rethink on the proposal as of now,” he added. Sources said that though a local timber owner had offered to cut the trees for ₹2,000 a tonne, the authorities were not quite sure if he would honour the promise later.
The Senate members, meanwhile, said that choosing only acacia trees for the sale was suspicious as other trees could be used for making paper pulp. The members sought to know the circumstances that led to the decision to cut down the trees in such large numbers and what the recommendation of the university’s engineering wing was on the matter. They asked why only acacia trees were being cut and what the conditions were on which the Green Committee of the university had recommended the process. They wondered why the trees were being sold to the company at a pittance. They also sought to know if the university had studied the environmental impact of the tree felling and had any plan to mitigate the damage caused due to the decision. They demanded that the university desist from the move which would not only cause ecological damage, but also lead to corruption.
Ms. Farooqui said they were planning to involve environmental activists in the issue. Memorandums would be submitted to the Chancellor and the government too, she added.
