NEW DELHI: Three trees were cut every hour in the past three years in the national capital and the estimate does not include instances of illegal felling, revealed an affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court on Monday. A total of 77,420 trees were permitted to be cut down in the last three years, it said.
The affidavit was filed by the state forest authorities after a contempt plea was filed by one Neeraj Sharma pertaining to the trees in the Vikas Marg area in East Delhi. A bench of Justice Najmi Wazir was hearing the contempt case concerning the preservation of city’s trees.
If the instances of illegal tree felling, trees cut down for forest clearance, unnoticed felling of trees, and those lost to the storm – not accounted for in the affidavit – are considered, the figures may be twice or four times the current number of over 77,000, the counsel appearing in the matter said.
The court observed that, “this city can’t afford to lose 77,000 trees,” and sought the stand of the forest authorities on the petitioner’s computation while also asking it to disclose the data concerning categories stated to be missing from the earlier affidavit.
“Aditya N Prasad, the learned counsel for the petitioner has brought the court’s attention to a computation, according to which, in the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 77,420 trees were permitted to be cut. This comes to about three trees per hour in the past three years. These figures are only for trees which were allowed to be felled under section 9, 29 of Delhi Trees Preservation Act,” the court recorded.
“Let the forest officials file an affidavit on the missing data, as well as its response to the figure of three trees being lost every hour,” ordered the court.