SC proposes planting 2x cut trees in Ridge, to be approved today | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday proposed that the Delhi Development Authority, which has illegally felled 1,670 trees in the southern ridge, should plant double the number of trees cut in the ridge and a hundred times the number of trees cut in the national capital as part of compensatory afforestation.
While formal orders to this effect are expected to be passed by a bench headed by the CJI on Friday, the bench’s proposal was accepted by advocates Maninder Singh and Vikas Singh, who appeared before the DDA.
The bench asked senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan to propose a mechanism to prevent such illegal felling of trees by any authority in the ridges, the only contiguous green areas in Delhi that act as lungs for the polluted city.
While DDA chairman and LG VK Saxena had put the number of trees felled without mandatory prior permission from the SC at 642, the Delhi forest department had said 745 trees had been felled. However, the Forest Survey of India had informed the court that as many as 1,670 trees were felled between February 16 and 26 for widening the road for easy access to vital installations such as a super specialty hospital for treating injured paramilitary personnel and the university from Sarc.
The loss of carbon stocks due to felling of trees in an area of ​​2.32 ha is estimated at 130.36 tonnes in all five pools, equivalent to 477.99 tonnes of CO2, the FSI said. The Delhi forest department had disputed the FSI’s claim. FSI has strongly objected to the under-reporting of the trees remaining in the project area. While the forest department said the total number of standing trees is 106 in RFA and 200 outside RFA (total 306), the FSI estimated their number at 166 inside RFA and 1,488 outside RFA (total 1,654).