NEW DELHI, June 6: At least three trees are cut every hour in Delhi for “developmental works” in the national capital as per the permission granted by the Delhi forest department in the last three years.
The Delhi forest department told the High Court that it granted permission to cut and in other cases cut and transplant at least 77,000 trees for developmental work in the city in the last three years. It also informed the court that only one-third of the trees transplanted during the period have survived.
Officials allowed agencies to cut or transplant 29,946 trees under section 9 of the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act (DPTA) and 47,474 trees under section 29 of the Act in the last three years. Section 9 of the Act says anyone desiring to remove a tree should file an application before the tree officer concerned for permission with ownership documents of the land and the girth measure of trees at a height of 1.85 metres from the ground level. Section 29 empowers the government to exempt “any area or any species of trees” from the Act in public interest through a notification.
The actual number of trees felled could be much more than the figure given by the forest department if the number of trees cut illegally is also considered, environment activists said. They also feared that the project proponents cut more trees than allowed over the years. The data has been submitted in response to orders on a contempt plea filed by RTI activist Neeraj Sharma against the concretisation of trees in east Delhi’s Vikas Marg area.
The Delhi government issued 52 notifications under section 29 of the DPTA from 2019 to 2021, allowing the felling of a total 15,426 trees and the transplantation of 32,048 trees in the capital. In a status report last month, the forest department said only one-third (33.33 per cent) of the 16,461 trees transplanted under section 9 of the Act in the last three years have survived.
In an affidavit, the department also painted a grim picture of compensatory plantation. It said the user agencies planted just 1,58,522 saplings as against the mandated 4,09,046 in the last three years in lieu of the trees cut. According to the provisions of the DPTA, the forest department has to ensure that 10 saplings are planted for each tree felled.
The data showed that a large number of offences registered for illegally cutting, damaging, pruning and concretising trees in the last three years are pending and the offenders have not submitted fines in most cases. Hearing the petition, Justice Najmi Waziri had directed that no tree would be felled in Delhi till next orders saying the capital cannot have the luxury to allow such “large-scale of denudation of trees” in view of the rampant air pollution.
(Manas Dasgupta)