The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has taken a decision to retender the project work on Jashore-Benapole road construction, keeping century-old trees intact.
Sources said backtracking from its earlier stance to widen the road with felling of these trees, now RHD decided to upgrade the existing road to make it usable for traffic. The 38 kilometres (kms) road is important for border trade having link with Benapole land port.
They said the decision was taken in line with the recommendations put forward by a committee recently.
The RHD formed the committee to see themselves the condition of Jashore road in Indian side as it was facing opposition from green activists after the project's contractor started cutting down some trees to widen the road.
The committee in its report recommended widening the existing two-lane Jashore road with two more lanes and a service lane on other side of trees.
Sources said the committee members visited India through Petrapole (Haridaspur) Bongaon, Barasat and Damdam road.
A meeting was informed that the provincial government also faced similar resistance from the green activists and suspended the road expansion work.
The government expanded one side of the existing road but has already started another project to construct 42-kilometre new alignment to facilitate traffic.
RHD officials said in Bangladesh side, expansion of the road will be costly as the department will have to acquire land to build the 38-km road along the existing one.
As the existing Jashore road is now in dilapidated condition, it needs urgent repair.
The authorities took the decision to cut down 2,700 trees on the highway under a RHD project in July but halted it for six months following protests against the government's decision to widen the road. The High Court in January also issued a rule asking the government to explain as to why the decision to cut down the trees should not be declared illegal.
The green activists claimed that felling of a total of 2,312 trees to widen the 38-km road would be a disaster for the environment as the trees spread on over 210 acres, almost similar to the size of a forest.
The project taken up to widen the 38.2-km road involving Tk 3.28 billion was approved in March 2017 without feasibility study. RHD officials said as the feasibility study is going on under another technical project to turn Dhaka-Jashore highway into four lanes, part of the road's study was not done.
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