HYDERABAD: Repeated violation of the forest protection law by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has come to light in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district. MoRTH has taken up works related to widening of a highway passing through the forest here without obtaining the necessary statutory permissions. In its recent meeting, this violation was viewed seriously by Regional Empowered Committee (REC), Chennai of Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).
The REC fumed over repeated violations and pointed out that the Telangana forest department could have prosecuted MoRTH for violation of the Forest Conservation Act, rather than just penalising them with compounding fees. According to the minutes of 40th meeting of REC accessed by Express, District Forest Officer of Jayashankar Bhupalpally found that the user agency, MoRTH, had excavated 790 cubic metres of soil in the forest area without obtaining Forest Clearance.
The violation was spread over 12 hectares. For this violation, the State’s forest department penalised MoRTH with `1.15 lakh as compounding fees. Prior to this as well, there was another violation by MoRTH of illegal excavation of soil in the forest for the same project. The violation pertains to the widening and strengthening of two-lane stretch of NH-353C passing through the forests in Mahadevpur and Bhupalpally divisions of Jayashankar Bhupalpally district, requiring diversion of around 32 hectares of forest and felling of 2,161 trees. It was also found that non-forest land was not provided for compensatory afforestation in lieu of loss of forest cover.
The REC finally said as penalty for repeated violations, the user agency should pay five times the net present value, and penal compensatory afforestation should be conducted over an area of 24.15 hectares in the degraded forest area and non-forest land shall be provided for compensatory afforestation. The REC also said that for repeat violations, the user agency shall be dealt with under concerned sections of the Forest Conservation Act, and no working permission shall be issued by the State government to user agency, unless directions by REC are duly complied with.