CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government is set to unveil a policy for complete removal of invasive weeds, particularly prosopis juliflora (seemai karuvelam), and the draft has already been made available in the public domain.
Additional Advocate General S Silambanan informed a larger bench of the Madras High Court consisting of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari, Justices N Sathish Kumar and D Bharatha Chakravarthy that the “Tamil Nadu Policy on Invasive Plants and Ecological Restoration” will be finalised in eight weeks.
“We have evolved the draft policy for removal of the invasive weeds. It has already been uploaded on the website (of the government). Public opinion has been sought,” he told the bench when a batch of petitions on the matter came up for hearing on Monday.
Silmbanan further stated the policy will be given final touches and is going to be published in eight weeks.
Accordingly, the bench granted time till the first week of June for the government to finalise the policy and get back to the court. However, the bench questioned why the government required eight weeks for just finalising the draft policy.
The drafting of the policy for dealing with invasive weeds has come in the wake of the High Court spurring the government on the need for putting in place such a comprehensive document for going about with full removal of the invasive weeds which primarily affect the fertility of soil and affect water-holding capacity of water bodies.
Another AAG J Ravindran informed the court that removal of the invasive weeds at an area of 700 acres as part of a pilot project has already begun in the state and the drive will continue to be carried out.
The government had formed seven teams consisting of forest department officials drawn from the Indian Forest Service (IFS) for studying the challenges posed by invasive weeds, particularly prosopis juliflora, in other states and evolve a mechanism for rooting them out in the state. The teams visited the concerned states and submitted their report to the government.