KATHMANDU: Nepali Congress lawmakers Pradeep Giri, Gagan Thapa and Dibyamani Rajbhandari have registered a motion of urgent public importance in the Parliament Secretariat opposing the government’s plan to cut down a large number of trees for Nijgadh International Airport.

Thapa said they had demanded that the issue be discussed in the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives on Friday. The movers of the motion wondered why the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation was rushing to fell such a large number of trees before finalising the size of airport or detailed project report.

They said the government could think of developing an airport city around Simara Airport rather than the forest area. The lawmakers raised questions about the modality to cut trees and approaches to mitigate the environmental impact of the project.

They wanted to know how the government would replace those trees and how it planned to deal with the loss of flora and fauna due to the project.