June 11: People in Kandivli will have to wait a while for the new municipal bus depot at Samata Nagar to open. The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has found that it can't run its buses from there because a large tree stands right in front of its entrance.

Officials ran into this problem when the traffic department was asked to conduct trial runs to the Kandivli station. The tree was blocking the entry and exit of buses in the depot.

They can't cut it down without the garden department's permission because that would be illegal. When the undertaking sought permission, it was promptly denied.

Then, at a meeting of the BEST committee, it was suggested that the department be asked whether the tree could be "relocated".

There was no objection to that. Additional municipal commissioner Sreedhar Joshi, who heads the tree committee, told BEST to go ahead and uproot the tree and plant it at some other place.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.