NEW DELHI: In what appeared to be a clash between environment protection and strategic infrastructure in a border state, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked Punjab govt its plan on allocation of land for compensatory afforestation in lieu of tree felling necessitated for construction of highway and public projects in the state.Solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana that the Punjab and Haryana HC has imposed a blanket bank on tree felling without the HC’s prior permission which had brought to a standstill that strategic road projects in the border state even though necessary permission for these had been obtained from statutory authorities.The bench said the HC’s concern was legitimate as the forest cover in Punjab has been reduced to 3.67% of the geographical area, which is lesser than the 4.87% forest cover in the arid Rajasthan. Compensatory afforestation would be the best possible answer, the bench said.SG said that for that land must be made available by the state. The bench asked the state govt to file a detailed proposal on provisioning land for compensatory afforestation whenever trees are required to be felled for highway projects.
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The HC, while imposing a blanket ban on tree felling, had flagged the poor forest cover in the state and said, “It appears that the functionaries of the state of Punjab are neither serious nor they seem conscious of the impending ecological catastrophe. In view of the inactivity of the respondents, it requires drastic remedial measures by this court. Accordingly, this court prohibits the cutting of any tree of any age/species in Punjab, without permission of this Court, till the next date of hearing.”In another case, the HC had said trees would be permitted to be cut if the state makes available and allots public land for the purpose of compensatory afforestation (planting of five times the number of trees cut) within a radius of five km of the place where the trees are felled. It had said that if the state failed to provide such land, then the cutting of trees would not take place.Mehta said that in linear highway projects, there may not be suitable land within five km of the project for afforestation and requested the court to relax this norm to enable afforestation at the nearest possible location.