100-year-old tree felled at Ladies Club, 17 others axed

NAGPUR: While the judiciary is giving serious heed to protection of the region’s green cover, citizens seem to be bulldozing the pro-environment initiatives. A century-old neem, a 40-year-old English

tamarind

and over a dozen more trees were cut down without permission at Ladies Club in Civil Lines.


On Friday evening, environment activist Shrikant Deshpande saw a truck full of timber coming out of the lawn’s main gate. On enquiring, he found that some trees were chopped off without the mandatory permission of the civic body.

The activist immediately alerted the officials of

Nagpur Municipal Corporation

’s (NMC) garden department which carried out a spot inspection. As per the official panchnama prepared on Saturday, a total of 18 trees in the lawn premises were completely cut down.

“Apart from neem and tamarind, a lot of subabul trees were also chopped,” said NMC’s garden superintendent Amol Chorpagar.

As per the testimony of club authorities, the trees’ branches were posing a threat. Speaking to TOI, a club official said, “The branches were cut by our decorator as it would fall on his house. We had sought permission to cut these trees.”

The official, however, could not give a concrete answer to why they didn’t wait for the permission.

Following the provisions of the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act, 2017, NMC will now put up the matter in sessions court. Around three months back, a century old uprooted pipal tree at Tekdi Ganesh temple was brought back to life, following stringent directives of the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court.

The court acted on a letter written by devotes Giridhar Sharma and others, which highlighted that the contractor engaged in renovation of the temple had deliberately cut the roots to weaken it. Four months back, HC took suo motu cognisance of a proposed tree felling at Ambazari t-point.

Appreciating the judicial efforts, activists feel that the conviction rate in illegal tree felling cases continues to be quite low. “Forest department and other concerned authorities need to take issue strict directives to the saw mills on taking timber only when trees are cut with permit. While giving permissions to cut trees, NMC should issue transit passes which should be cross-checked by the mill owners,” said Deshpande.

To avoid transportation of illegally chopped trees, the traffic police should also be roped in. “They can catch hold of vehicles which are transporting timber without the required permit. Tree-cutting contractors should be directed to work only when necessary permissions are obtained,” the activist added.