Principal district judge A. Kayalvizhi inspected the removal of ‘Seemai karuvelam’ (prosopsis juliflora) trees in government promboke lands in Thirupullani area as the district administration invoked Section 133 of Cr. PC to take action against private land owners who failed to remove the trees in their lands.
This arid district was probably the only southern district, largely hit by the invasive trees as it was estimated that the trees have grown in 1,04,947 hectares – 36,289 hectares of government lands and 68,658 hectares of private lands.
Acting on the orders of the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court, the district administration had launched a massive exercise to remove the trees in government lands and issued notices to private land owners, calling upon them to voluntarily remove the trees from their land holdings.
Sensitisation
The district administration, led by Collector S. Natarajan, sensitised the public to the harmful nature of the trees by taking out awareness rallies, distributing pamphlets and displaying banners and flex boards at all places of public gathering, explaining the need to root out the trees.
As not many private land owners came forward to remove the trees, the Collector has issued notices under Section 133 of Cr. PC to initiate action.
He had already warned them that the government would collect double the removal cost if private land owners failed to remove them trees voluntarily.
The district administration, which began the exercise ahead of the north east monsoon, has so far removed trees in 8,506 hectares, while desilting the waterbodies and cleaning the supply channels, an official release said.
Orders have been issued to remove the trees in 9,441.67 hectares of ‘kanmais’ (waterbodies), maintained by public works and rural development departments, the release said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Kayalvizhi, accompanied by Chief Judicial Magistrate R. Jayaraj and Ramanathapuram Municipality commissioner A. Abdul Rasheed inspected the removal of trees in Thirupullani, Big tank and Landhai tank areas.
