At the altar of development

The debate between expansion of Dehradun vs. preservation of its legacy becomes more heated with the Doon-based Rangers' College being the latest casualty of development:

Anjali Nauriyal

The tragedy of Dehradun is that it is being pushed towards so called planned Utopianism - pushed towards a categorization that is unwilling to accommodate each one and everyone. Life does not, or rather should not, work this way. If it does, then significant aspects of the diversity of living are bound to get lost.

Our case in point is the taking over of the portions of the Rangers' College grounds and St Joseph's Academy by the administration for the expansion of certain bottlenecks that are obstructing easy commuting. On one hand is the growing requirement of the city that is literally bursting at the seams while on the other is the voice of the people who feel that what is valuable needs to be preserved at all costs. This has led to a crisis of sorts that is becoming difficult to resolve.

Recently when portions of the walls of the Rangers' College grounds were brought down to widen the Landsdowne Chowk, there was uproar. Many Tibetan Market shops were vacated and brought down. What caused great disturbance was the fact that the valuable heritage housed within the walls of Rangers' College seemed to have been considered insignificant.

For the sake of records, it needs to be mentioned that Rangers' College today stands in honour of Sir Dietrich Brandis, a German Botanist and founder of forestry education in India. He developed the present sylvan surroundings as the Imperial Forest School Garden in 1878. In later years, the campus belonged to Forest Rangers' College under the FRI and Colleges (FRI & C), Forest Survey of India, and presently as Forestry Extension City Centre of FRI. The place abounds in spectacular trees that are part of the urban environs of Doon. The herbarium specimens of several trees, dating back to 1892-1899, from this centre are used and preserved in the FRI herbarium. Amongst the monumental trees here is a Gab Tree (grown in 1890) with a dark and thick crown typical of swamp forests of Doon Valley. There is another huge teak tree that has been named The Pride of India. Then there is a Ficus Elastica Tree with a ramified trunk whose crown is the resort of the fast disappearing Grey Horn bill species. These examples should give an idea how priceless the place is.

REACH, well-known cultural organisation of Doon, occupied the premises of Rangers' College about a decade ago after entering into an MOU with Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF) to start a cultural centre in the premises. R.K. Singh, Secretary, REACH, states, "Then, too, the administration forcibly took over the premises and immediately began breaking the floor of the heritage building to accommodate offices or some such things. We created a hue and cry and somehow managed to stop the damage that was being caused to the building. At the risk of the reputation of our own organization, we fought to save the Rangers' College campus. Now matters seem to be getting shoddier as the campus seems to be at risk."

The preservationists can take heart in the fact that a show-cause notice has been issued to Mulayam Singh, Executive Engineer of PWD, by Azam Zaidi, Chief Conservator of Forests, in the Union Government, posted at Lucknow, informs S.S. Negi, Director, FRI. The notice has been served for the violation of the Forest Conservation Act 1980. According to Zaidi, this property has the status of deemed forest, presently being used for forestry purposes like silviculture nursery, bamboo germ plasm, and houses a large number of rare and endangered tree species. This is central government land and the district administration has no right to acquire it.

Attention has been drawn to the Supreme Court order WP (c) 202/95 dated 12th December 1996, wherein it has been clarified that in any forest land, as per the dictionary meaning irrespective of status and ownership, the FC Act 1980 would be applicable. Any use of forest land for any non-forestry purpose would require approval of the Central Government under the FC Act.

Zaidi has pointed out that according to the information with and records at his office, no such approval was sought to acquire the Rangers' College land. Negi informs that the executive engineer has been directed to stop violation of the FC Act with immediate effect and to explain why action ought not to be taken under section 3 of the act. A reply has been sought within 15 days, else action would follow. A copy of the notice has been sent to the DM, Dehradun. Another disgruntled party is St Joseph's Academy School situated in the centre of the city. This school was made to give up portion of its campus some time ago and the school accommodated for the sake of larger good. In the process, many valuable trees were chopped down. Now again the school has received a notice with regard to taking over of another portion of its land.

A.J. George, the Principal, states, "We will take legal action. They should not threaten us with bulldozing scares. Whatever they want to do they must do legally. We don't know what's going to be their next move. Their plan was to demolish our wall by February 12. " St Josephs' Alumni Association undertook a silent candle march recently to protest against the land acquisition by the administration for road widening. "This is just not done. Our school is a heritage school that has given to the country some leading men in a variety of fields," says Rajive Sachar, Coordinator of the association.

The attempts of the state administration to alter the boundaries of Gandhi Park and Parade Ground were thwarted by a public interest litigation filed by the Citizens of Green Doon. The Uttarakhand High Court has issued stay orders on the above alteration plans and cutting down of trees.