
June 11: People in Kandivli will have to wait a while for the new municipal bus depot at Samata Nagar to open. The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport BEST undertaking has found that it can8217;t run its buses from there because a large tree stands right in front of its entrance.
Officials ran into this problem when the traffic department was asked to conduct trial runs to the Kandivli station. The tree was blocking the entry and exit of buses in the depot.
They can8217;t cut it down without the garden department8217;s permission because that would be illegal. When the undertaking sought permission, it was promptly denied.
Then, at a meeting of the BEST committee, it was suggested that the department be asked whether the tree could be quot;relocatedquot;.
There was no objection to that. Additional municipal commissioner Sreedhar Joshi, who heads the tree committee, told BEST to go ahead and uproot the tree and plant it at some other place.