Agarwal urged to halt tree mutilation

PUNE, June 5: The Viman Nagar Citizens Forum has urged Municipal Commissioner Rajiv Agarwal to intervene and prevent mutilation of trees in Viman Nagar area caused by nailing of advertising boards into tree trunks.

In a memorandum submitted to the municipal commissioner who had visited this area for a meeting on Tuesday, Qaneez Sukhrani, secretary of the Forum pointed out that although the volunteers from the organisation had already removed around 150 boards nailed into trees in and around Viman Nagar with prior permission of the police and administration, it had been noticed that major companies such as Aptech had nailed fresh boards onto the trees at Kalyani Nagar, Viman Nagar and Nagar Road.

Such violations must be dealt with harshly to end this new trend of low-cost advertising that mutilated precious trees, she asserted lamenting the lack of awareness and education which compounded with apathy towards the ecological situation.

Most of the violators, according to her, were found to be computer companies such as Aptech, NAC, Datapro, Starbase and Jetking among others. The forum urged the companies to desist from using this low cost form of advertising in the future.