Nod only for 54, but over 120 trees cut near Sultanpur National park: Greens

GURUGRAM: More than 120 trees have been felled within 500 metres of the Sultanpur National Park by an individual who was granted permission to cut only 54 of them, a group of environmentalists have pointed out.
In a letter to the Haryana forest department and the Centre, the four environmentalists - Vaishali Rana Chandra, Vivek Kamboj, Col SS Oberoi (retd) and Roma Vinayak - claimed that the permission to cut 54 trees on a private patch of land was given on June 1.
They pointed out that the area where the trees had been cut was within 500m of the boundary wall of the Sultanpur park. On June 3, the Supreme Court had directed that every national park and wildlife sanctuary in the country must have an eco-sensitive zone of at least 1km from the demarcated boundaries. The court had specified that no permanent structure or mining of any kind could be allowed within this area.
"If the Sultanpur National Park eco-sensitive zone is to be violated like this, what's the point of having a buffer area and a monitoring committee at all? Also, how could the land owner chop over 120 trees when he had permission for only 54?" asked Chandra.
Kamboj questioned the role of the forest department in carrying out vigil. "Senior officials here were caught napping while their subordinates gave away the permission to cut trees within a sensitive zone. Did they even consider compensatory afforestation?" he asked.
According to the Sultanpur eco-sensitive zonal plan notification, which was issued on June 18 last year, cutting of trees and other such activities requiring any environmental clearance will have to take approval from the State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). In this case, no such permission was taken from the SEIAA.
Forest department officials said they were not aware of the number of trees that were actually cut. They, however, stressed that there was no violation in granting the permission.
"There was no violation whatsoever in granting the nod because the trees were on private land. The permission was given on June 1. According to the Haryana eco-sensitive zonal plan, the forest department, GMDA and the local panchayat can give permissions for felling trees in a buffer zone. It was only on June 3 that the Supreme Court came out with the order to consider a 1km area as an eco-sensitive zone and barred any kind of permanent construction on it. Since the ruling, we have not given any such permission. About the number of trees that were actually felled, we will verify that," said Rajeev Tajyan, the divisional forest officer in Gurgaon.