The Tribune: Chandigarh: Monday, August 20, 2018.
Environmentalists
in Punjab have questioned the Forest Department’s move to spend lakhs of rupees
from the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA)
funds to defend a deforestation case before the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
In this case,
a protected forest was illegally passed off as a non-forest area to allow
felling of 24,777 trees on the banks of the Bist Doab canal. The funds in
question are meant to plant trees under compensatory afforestation.
Dr Amardeep
Aggarwal, an environmentalist who had sought information under the RTI Act on
spending of CAMPA funds, said, “The department not only allowed felling of
trees in forest areas, but also used CAMPA funds on contesting illegal
deforestation. The guidelines have been violated to justify deforestation and
department irregularities.”
The
department spent around Rs 86 lakh on the fee of senior advocates to defend the
case before the NGT and the Supreme Court, he said.
The NGT order
to the state government and the Forest Department to undertake compensatory
afforestation on area equivalent to the forest area destroyed along the Bist
Doab canal is set to cost around Rs 2 crore, sources said. The cost of
afforestation has to be recovered from the Irrigation Department, the agency
that widened the irrigation canal.
Meanwhile,
the Vigilance Bureau (VB), which initiated a probe into the felling of over
24,000 trees in 2017, under a canal rejuvenation project undertaken during the
then SAD-BJP government, is yet to submit its report. The record pertaining to
tree-felling in the Nawanshahr and Phillaur forest divisions had been summoned
by VB officials. The range officers of the forest divisions concerned were also
quizzed.
In the light
of the NGT order, Conservator of Forests (Hills) Harsh Kumar has claimed that
departmental rules were tweaked to dispose of the felled trees at 25 per cent
less that their reserved price. In September 2016, the then Principal Chief
Conservator of Forests (PCCF)-cum-Managing Director of the Punjab Forest
Development Corporation had moved a case before the Secretary (Forests) to
permit the auction of trees at 25 per cent less than the market price. The
Secretary had granted permission. Later, the corporation raised a bill of Rs 65
lakh to the Irrigation Department to compensate for the loss suffered by it due
to the disposal of the trees at lower prices.