Ghaziabad: Over33,000 trees to be felled for Kanwar road along Upper Ganga Canal, NGT told

The report submitted before the tribunal states that the felling activity would be taken up on about 222.98 hectares in the three districts of Ghaziabad, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar

In a detailed response submitted to the National Green Trobunal, the Uttar Pradesh government has submitted that about 33,776 mature trees and 78,946 plants will have to be cut for the construction of a 111km road alongside the Upper Ganga Canal from Muradnagar in Ghaziabad to Purkaji near UP/Uttarakhand border.

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The NGT took suo motu cognisance of the issue on February 1 from a Hindustan Times report on how the Uttar Pradesh government’s forest department has given its nod for felling more than 100,000 trees and shrubs (about 112722) in the protected forests of three forest divisions — Ghaziabad, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar — for the construction of two lanes of the road.

During the first hearing on March 13, the NGT had directed the UP forest department and district magistrates of the three districts to file detailed responses about the trees/plants that need to be felled.

The report submitted before the tribunal states that the felling activity would be taken up on about 222.98 hectares in the three districts.

“It is submitted that to compensate the diversion of 222.98 hectares of protected forest land, the equivalent non forest land or double degraded land i.e. 445.96 hectare was not available in affected three districts Ghaziabad, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar...Therefore non-forest land and double-degraded land was proposed in lalitpur, Mirzapur & Sonbhadra district...,” the report stated.

The districts of Lalitpur, Mirzapur and Sonbhadra are respectively about 550km, 767km and 848km away from Ghaziabad.

The report mentioned that against the 112,722 trees/plants proposed to be felled for the project, 484,720 saplings will be planted in Lalitpur, Mirzapur and Sonbhadra, and 21,028 plants will planted in the Meerut district/forest division near the project.

The total compensatory afforestation would involve a budget of about ₹28.6 crore, the officials said.

The UP officials also tried to rationalise the need for a new road along the Upper Ganga Canal and said “about 1 crore Kanwariyas travel to their homes along this route during the Kanwar Yatra held in the month of Shravan (July-August).

The ₹658-crore project is to be taken up by the UP public works department and will be funded by the state government. One side of the Upper Ganga Canal already has a metalled road along the eastern embankment, and the two new lanes are proposed along the western embankment.

The tribunal during a hearing on May 20 said before examining the report, it needs to ascertain the nature of road being constructed.

“Hence, we require the special secretary, public works department, to file an affidavit within three days disclosing if the road which is being constructed is a national highway, state highway or any other type of road and also to produce the material on the basis of which roads are classified as national highway, state highway etc. We are granting only three day’s time for this purpose as a large number of trees are in the process of being cut...” the tribunal said.

Sanjay Singh, executive engineer, UP public works department, who is also the nodal officer for the project, did not take calls seeking his response on Wednesday.

During the latest hearing on May 24, the response submitted by UP officials said, “The construction of the road will be done for length of 111.49 km which connects three districts Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Ghaziabad. It will be categorised after construction as “other district road (ODR)”. The land width (right of way) is taken as 20 metre which comes under the prescribed range of 15-25 metre as per Indian Road Congress (IRC) norms for ODR.”

To this, the tribunal said, “Nothing has been placed on record to point out the competent authority which classifies the road as national/state highway etc. and numbers them.”

The tribunal during the hearing on May 24 also issued notice to officials of ministry of road transport and highways and it was accepted by the counsel appearing for the new respondent.

“He is directed to inform on the next date of hearing about the criteria which is adopted for classification of a road as national highway/state highway/district road/village road,” the tribunal further said.