Forest department has slapped a fine of ₹5,000 on a farmer for cutting trees on his land close to the reserve forest area without obtaining mandatory permission.
Sources in the Forest department told The Hindu that farmer Perumal Muthu, who had his land just a km away from the boundary of reserve forests in the Kozhunthumaamalai beat near Govindaperi, approached the forest department for getting the mandatory permission for felling 106 teak trees, each aged about 14 years. As per norms, the grower should get permission from the forest department for cutting trees if the land is situated 5 km from the forest boundary.
Since the permission had to be given by officials at highest level, the delay irked both the farmer and the prospective buyers of timbers, who decided to go ahead with the cutting of trees with the cooperation of a few lower level forest personnel.Armed with the lower level personnel’s advice of paying the fine for cutting the trees without the permission, the trees were felled recently and cut into pieces for easy transport. While 50 trees are yet to be transported from the spot, other timbers had already reached the designated destinations, the sources added.
Meanwhile, a team of senior officials, on getting information about illegal felling of trees, visited the spot and slapped a fine of ₹5,000 on Perumal Muthu.
“Felling of 36 trees was confirmed and the fine was imposed on the farmer for cutting the trees without permission. The cut trees were just poles and not huge logs and hence only ₹5,000 was imposed,” said Deputy Director (in charge), Kalakkad – Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve’s Kalakkad division.
