The Madras High Court Bench here on Wednesday directed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to plant about 20,000 saplings along the four-lane highways in the southern districts within two days and file a compliance report by Friday evening.
A Division Bench of Justices R. Sudhakar and V.M. Velumani issued the direction after it was irked over the NHAI authorities not taking proper action on the suggestion made by the court during the last hearing to procure the saplings from the Madurai District Forest Officer (DFO).
During the hearing on Wednesday, NHAI counsel submitted that his clients had written a letter to the DFO with respect to the suggestions made by the court and that they had planned to commence plantation of about 1,58,781 saplings from Thursday.
However, DFO Nihar Ranjan told the court that the letter had been written seeking an estimate for maintenance of the saplings and not for procurement. About 20,000 saplings were available with his department for distribution free of cost. Asking the DFO to collect money for the saplings from NHAI concessionaires, the judges warned the latter of losing their right to collect toll from booths in Madurai, Karaikudi, Tiruchi, Karur, Thanjavur and Nagercoil if they did not arrange for money and manpower to plant the saplings by Friday.
Earlier, NHAI submitted that it had felled about 83,885 trees for widening the highways in the project implementation units in the six districts and converting them from two to four lanes. To compensate the loss, it had planned to plant 2,51,655 saplings at the ratio of three saplings for every tree felled by it.
Claiming to have already planted 1,62,803 trees, NHAI claimed that only 92,874 of those trees survived the vagaries of the weather.
Disagreeing with their submission, Mr. Justice Sudhakar pointed out that he and another judge had already ordered to plant 10 saplings for every tree felled by NHAI.
File a compliance report by Friday evening: HC
