An online petition condemning the model road project undertaken by the Coimbatore Corporation on Race Course Road has garnered over 2,400 signatories in two days.
Environmentalist R. Mohammed Saleem, who started the petition, alleged that over 70 trees were felled in the area to carry out the model road works under the Smart Cities Mission. He urged that the works must be stopped immediately and the Corporation must form a committee comprising residents, and environmentalists as stakeholders. “We are concerned about Coimbatore’s prioritisation with rapid development at the cost of the city’s public green spaces,” Mr. Saleem said in a statement.
In its present form, the model road project had a lack of transparency as the plan had not been made public and did not include residents and environmentalists as stakeholders, he claimed. He further alleged that the project was “anti-environment” as it allegedly converted Race Course Road “from a healthy green space to colourful [and] polluted concrete space.”
