By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
In the nick of time, concerned citizens of Dehradun on Friday literally saved a precious life when they stopped the felling of a tun tree which was proposed to be axed in front of the Rashtrapati Ashiana at the Rajpur Road in the capital city of Uttarakhand.
As soon as the news spread that the tun tree, believed to be 200 year old, was being felled, the citizens immediately lodged their strong protest with the forest department and the PWD.
Buckling under the pressure of the social activists belonging to Dehradun Citizens Forum (DCF), the main trunk of the tun tree along with some side branches was spared. The tree was being cut for the construction of a foot over-bridge.
Led by Retu Chatterjee, Anoop Nautiyal and several other people in the DCF group, frantic efforts were launched to stop the further felling of the tree. “The tree is safe as of now several concerned citizens like Retu Chatterjee and others spoke to concerned officials to get the felling finally stopped. We will meet these officials very soon to get the permission of the tree (tun) felling cancelled,” said Himanshu Arora of DCF.
Meanwhile in yet another significant development, the PWD department has assured that it would not fell any tree on the New Cantt Road in Dehradun for the widening project. The decision came after the DCF protested against the felling of trees on the roadside. Last year also, the plan to cut large number of trees on the Cantt Road was shelved following strong protests by the DCF activists.
Social activists believe that the trees are being felled unnecessarily in Dehradun which is causing huge environmental issues like the rising temperature. Last year, the temperature in Dehradun shot up to 43 degree C which was a record.