Hearing the group's complaints, the CZA dismissed the BMC's Rs 480-crore plan on Tuesday. It has now given the corporation a set of guidelines, mandating that the 150-year-old botanical garden's trees be left untouched. The Save Rani Bagh committee had maintained that the revamp would lead to the destruction of at least 1,100 trees out of the total 3,200 trees in the Grade II B botanical garden.
Members of the committee welcomed the CZA's fresh guidelines on Tuesday. "We are grateful to the CZA for heeding to the representations we made over the last four years," said Hutoxi Rustomfram, a member of the Save Rani Bagh committee. "We are happy that the number of enclosures will not be increased. We have always said that the zoo should coexist with the botanical garden."
Another member of the group Katie Bagli said: "The botanical garden is a green lung and is more important to the city than the zoo." Read the full report here.
Source: Linah Baliga, TNN, Mumbai.
