News Detail

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has assured the Gulbarga bench of the High Court that it will fell only 2,210 trees while widening the Humnabad-Gulbarga-Bijapur National Highway-218 and not 35,676 trees as it had decided earlier.

The NHAI submitted the memo on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition based on a report carried by Deccan Herald on August 20, 2012. The then Chief Justice, Vikramajit Sen, had taken suo motu cognisance of the report and converted it into a PIL.

The court had issued notice to six respondents - Union Ministry of Environment and Forests; Union Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways; NHAI; Department of Forest, Ecology, and Environment of the Karnataka government; Chief Conservator of Forests of the State, and the Deputy Conservators of Forests of Bijapur, Gulbarga and Bidar. The court had called for para-wise replies to the DH report from all the respondents. Further, it had requested lawyer M S Bhagwat to act as amicus curiae in the petition. In an interim order, the court had directed the NHAI to not cut any trees until the PIL was disposed of.

The DH report from Gulbarga had exposed the NHAI’s plans to cut more than 35,000 trees in the highly tropic and arid districts of Gulbarga, Yadgir and Bijapur districts where forest coverage is only three per cent and annual rainfall ranges from 50 to 70 cm. The tree carnage would have wreaked an environmental havoc.

The original project was to have swallowed 2.16 ha of protected forest area in Gulbarga and Bidar districts. The project’s draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report was prepared by a Secunderabad-based private agency. It had suggested felling 35,676 trees.

But after the PIL was filed and notices issued, the NHAI conducted a fresh survey on the environmental impact to minimise the loss of trees. In the memo before the court, the NHAI assured that only 2,210 trees would be felled, thus saving 33,466 trees along the road.

Following the undertaking given by the NHAI, a division bench of Chief Justice D H Waghela and Justice B V Nagarathna disposed of the PIL recently. The court accepted the memo of the NHAI and its assurance that substantial number of trees would be saved despite widening of the road. The court held that the writ petition would not call for any further orders and vacated all interim orders given in this regard.

Welcoming the court’s suo motu intervention and lauding Deccan Herald for taking up the environmental cause, Deepak Gala, president of the Hyderabad Karnataka Environment Awareness and Protection Organisation, flayed the so-called professional agencies carrying out EIA without having genuine concern for environment. “Had the original EIA' report gone to the Centre, it would not have taken cognisance of the environmental disaster that would have been caused in this region,’’ Gala remarked.

Source-On Request