To
Ms Leena Nandan
Secretary
Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & ClimateChange (MEFCC)
Dear Ms Nandan,You are aware of the statutory obligation on the part of your Ministry and the A&N Administration to fulfill the condition stipulated by the Forest Conservation Division of your Ministry vide File No.8-22/2020-FC dated 27-10-2022 on compensatory afforestation for the proposed diversion of 130.75 sq km of tropical forest lands in Greater Nicobar Island for a Mega Infrastructure Project being set up. The Environment Clearance issued by your Ministry vide10/17/2021-IA-III dated 4-11-2022 has also made it mandatory for the concerned authorities to ensure compensatory afforestation in line with the norms laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Godavarman case. This condition has also been upheld by Hon’ble National Green Tribunal (NGT) in their order dated 3-4-2023 in Appeals No. 29-31/2022/EZ.
It was inappropriate in the first instance for your Ministry to have proposed compensatory afforestation for denuding forest lands in Greater Nicobar in a State as far away as Haryana, where it is physically impossible to raise forests equivalent in terms of the tropical forest to be lost in Greater Nicobar. Even if some lands in Haryana were to be afforested, they can never compensate for the loss of rich biodiversity that Greater Nicobar forests have. Evidently, your Ministry had to throw all caution to the wind on extraneous considerations.
On the other side, in Haryana where your Ministry had proposed compensatory afforestation on such an ambitious and near-impossible scale, the existing Aravalli forests have already fallen prey to predatory real estate developers, as reported widely and pointed out by me in my article, https://countercurrents.org/2024/09/diversion-of-aravalli-land-in-haryana-for-mining-despite-their-reservation-for-compensatory-afforestation-towards-denotification-of-tropical-forest-in-greater-nicobar-island-amnounts-to-committing-co/.
To the best of my knowledge, while preparations are going on a war-footing in Greater Nicobar Island to start construction activity for the Mega project, which would involve cutting down 9.64 lakh trees (as per a reply given by your Ministry in Rajya Sabha on 3-8-2023 in response to Question No 1648) over an extent of 130.75 Sq Km of forest land, no tangible measures have yet been initiated for compensatory afforestation over twice that extent, that is, 261.5 sq km. In fact, in Haryana, largely as a result of a nexus between political leaders and real estate developers. Leave alone raising new forests, Haryana is nonchalantly allowing even the existing forest land to shrink rapidly.
In this connection, I refer to a recent observation, reported to have been made by the Hon’ble Supreme Court on tree cutting in Delhi:
“Now we are putting you to notice. One option will be if we don’t see compliance we will restore the highway to the original condition. The other will be cost for each tree short. This is the only way to enforce orders. If you are short by a hundred trees it will be 10 lakhs per tree more than 100 trees, 15 lakhs per tree.”
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The law applicable thus to Delhi should apply equally to the case of compensatory afforestation in the case of the Mega Infra project in Greater Nicobar Island. In other words, it would be prima facie illegal for MEFCC and A&N Administration to allow tree cutting and denudation of forests in Greater Nicobar Island, unless and until the required extent of compensatory afforestation in Haryana takes place simultaneously. On the face of it, neither your Ministry nor the Haryana government is either serious about conserving the existing forests or about undertaking compensatory afforestation over 261.5 sq km in that State.
May I therefore request your Ministry to take urgent steps on raising new forests over 261.5 sq km, pending which, no further action should be permitted to proceed in the case of the Mega Infrastructure Project in Greater Nicobar Island?
Regards,
Yours sincerely,
EASSarma
Former Secretary to the Government of India
Visakhapatnam
