Govt to probe felling of 24,777 trees

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 6

The Punjab Government has deputed Additional Chief Secretary-cum-Financial Commissioner, Taxation, MP Singh to probe the role of forest officers in the felling of 24,777 trees under a project to widen the 800 km-long Bist-Doab canal during the SAD-BJP rule in 2016. The Water Resources Department had undertaken the project.

The probe has been ordered on the directives of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The Chief Secretary has been asked to appoint an inquiry officer, not below the rank of Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), to fix the responsibility of the officers, if any, for the violation of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980.

The tribunal’s double Bench, comprising Justice Raghuvendra S Rathore and member Satyawan Singh Garbyal, had stated that officers of the department had deliberately ignored the fact that the trees were demarked as part of a protected forest and there was wilful violation of the Forest Conservation Act.

The Act required the department to take permission from the Ministry of Environment.