The Supreme Court’s rebuke to the Maharashtra government over its shoddy record on compensatory afforestation should jolt every state awake. It has suspended clearances for Mumbai’s infrastructure projects after finding that barely half of the 20,460 saplings planted to replace felled trees had survived. These were trees sacrificed for metro lines and a tunnel slicing under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park—a project that quite literally tunnels through the city’s lungs. Chief Justice B R Gavai’s Bench has now warned the state that even earlier clearances could be withdrawn if credible afforestation plans are not on the table by November 10.
Infrastructure drives growth. But when roads, tunnels and airports bulldoze through forests, the balance between progress and preservation collapses. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act was meant to prevent exactly this—by mandating that agencies plant twice the number of trees they fell. Instead, it has become a bureaucratic ritual. Permissions to hack trees are granted easily; the promised saplings are planted on paper and left to die on the ground. The forest department’s own affidavit admitted as much: most saplings perished for lack of protection and maintenance.
This failure is national, not local. Across India, compensatory afforestation has turned into a tragic farce. In Chhattisgarh, plantations meant to offset 228 hectares of forest cleared for a highway failed because the land was split into 19 scattered plots. A 2020 study in Himachal Pradesh found that only 10 per cent of required saplings were planted, and barely 3.6 per cent survived. Monoculture plantations of teak or eucalyptus masquerade as forests but kill biodiversity. Weak monitoring, inadequate land, and the absence of local community involvement finish the damage.
India lost 2.3 million hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2024, according to Global Forest Watch. This is not just an environmental deficit; it is a national failure at a time of intensifying climate shocks. The Supreme Court has opened a door for accountability. The Centre and states must walk through it—with real-time audits, transparent monitoring, and penalties that actually hurt. Growth cannot continue to chop down the very trees that make it possible to breathe.
