Green blow in Red corridor

The environment ministry has not agreed to a proposal to allow cutting of trees in area of up to 30 meters of the existing and proposed roads in 60 worst left wing extremism districts. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 31, 2011, 01:37:40 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The government’s fight against Left Wing Extremism has suffered a green blow.

The environment ministry has not agreed to a proposal to allow removal of trees in area of up to 30 meters of the existing and proposed roads in 60 worst Left Wing Extremism (LWE) districts.

The proposal having a twin objective – to check assault on patrolling security forces and speed up development of new roads – could have meant felling of up to about 90 lakh trees along 4,000 kms existing and 5,400 kms of the proposed roads.

Since 2009 and till May 2011, 365 security personnel have been killed by Maoists, mostly in surprise attacks from dense forests around many of these roads.

“The dense forest along roads is also an easy getaway after the attack,” a senor government official explained.

The road transport ministry had also complained that only 540 kms of the proposed 5,400 kms could be constructed in two four years because of inadequate security.

“The dense forest is a huge impediment in providing security covers for those working on roads,” the official said. In many regions like Bastar in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra , because of high security risk, contractors are not coming forward to take up projects.

These concerns had resulted in a proposal seeking an exemption of environment ministry’s prior approval to cut trees along these roads to thwart any surprise attacks. Earlier, the ministry had allowed diversion of up to five hectares of forestland in the 60 naxal affected districts with its prior approval for developmental works such as construction of schools and dispensaries.

“Such large scale felling may give rise to commercial interests in the guide of security concerns,” the environment ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee said, while rejecting the proposal. “Given that many of these districts have extensive forests, any such blanket permission would lead to extensive loss of forest with no oversight”.

The FAC – the statutory body under the Forest Conservation Act to decide on diversion of forestland for non-forest purposes – was also of the view that the newly opened stretches will have provided an open invitation for encroachment. “It would not have resulted only in permanent loss of the valuable forest land but would have also severely affected the adjoining forest and dependent communities,” the FAC said.

The ministry had accepted the FAC’s view as India’s tribal belt, also home of worst naxalism, has country’s best forest cover. As against the national average of 21 %, the tribal districts have a forest cover in 37 % of its total geographical area.

(Inputs from Moushumi Das Gupta)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.