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GURGAON: The Supreme Court has allowed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to widen the Pataudi-Rewari-Gurgaon highway. NHAI had moved the apex court after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) last year stalled the work over concerns related to compensatory afforestation.
The SC has now directed the Haryana government to involve the NHAI and environmental activists in carrying out an afforestation drive along the highway. Although 12,000 trees have been chopped for the widening project, no compensatory afforestation has been carried out yet. Rules require at least 10 saplings to be planted for each tree felled.
“…The State of Haryana will interact with the petitioner as well as co-respondents, to find out the place/location, where trees can be replanted. We also direct that, in case, any specified location is mutually agreed upon, the tree plantation drive shall be undertaken in the said location,” said the order by Justices Sanjiv Khanna and MM Sundresh, which was released on Friday. The hearing was on April 6.
The Haryana government had earlier planned to carry out afforestation in Panchkula, around 300km from the spot where the road is being widened. Officials had then cited unavailability of large swathes of land around the project site.
Environmentalists had opposed the move, saying that a plantation drive so far from the site where trees were cut would hardly help in restoring green cover. The forest department had then asked NHAI to find 100 hectares to plant 2 lakh saplings within 10km of the construction site on NH-352W.
The absence of any afforestation plan near the site also prompted environmentalists to move the NGT in September last year. The tribunal directed NHAI to get a fresh clearance for compensatory afforestation within 10km of the highway. “We have noticed that several trees have already been cut, but no more trees are allowed to be cut, without compliance of the order,” the tribunal had said.
The NHAI project involves building an additional lane on 43km of the highway. The work, which began in 2019, was scheduled to be completed by November this year. But it is set to get delayed.
Environmentalists said the SC order would help restore green cover. “Trees felled in Gurgaon for the widening of a road will be planted in the same district. This means Gurgaon will get 2 lakh trees. This will create a good forest cover,” said Vaishali Rana Chandra, a green activist.
Experts have for long pointed out that the city is fast losing its green cover. A Forest Survey of India (FSI) study released this year found that Gurgaon lost 2.47sqkm of forest cover in just one year – 2019-2020. “There is no dearth of degraded land that can be re-flourished with green cover. Gurgaon has a land bank and the government can carry out plantation drives easily,” said Vivek Kamboj, a city-based activist.
Forest department officials said they would follow the SC order. “We will act according to the direction of the apex court,” said a forest official.
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