It is mandatory for the developer to plant three times more trees somewhere else as a replacement of the chopped ones ,Under Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Preservation of Trees Act, 1975. The Tree Authority of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has been assigned to supervise this task.
However, the rampant practice was going on in which following the approval of the building plan from the building construction department, hardly any developer was abiding by the same.
The developers who deposit a few thousands rupees in lieu of the chopped trees, were preferring to forfeit the cash amount which is very negligible compared to the cost and profit involved in the projects. This dangerous trend was killing lakhs of trees every year, thereby reducing precious green cover of the city.
In order to break this practice, municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar on Tuesday issued an order to chief city engineer to make it mandatory to take non-objection certificate (NOC) from Tree Authority before approving any building construction and development of land.
The municipal chief in his order further instructed not to pass the plan of building and not to allow commencement and completion certificate unless it obtains ‘last NOC’ from the Tree Authority, having responsibility to check the status of new plantation and status of trees that were cut.
This order by municipal chief Kumar, who is also the designated president of Tree Authority of PMC, has come after one year’s efforts and followups from the expert members of Tree Authority.
The expert members who are into conservation of trees and environment had passed the same proposal in March last year. The expert members, during their meetings, had brought it to the notice of the higher authority that the tree act was already equipped with this prior NOC provision, but due to pressure by the builder lobby and their nexus with political leaders and civic officers it was never come forth.
Talking to Mirror, Shilpa Bhosale, one of the expert members, said, “We are happy that finally lakhs of trees will be saved from clutches of developers who recklessly cut the trees.”
“We first passed the proposal before the expert committee meeting of Tree Authority and brought the section 19(K) and (Kh) of the tree act to the notice of PMC officials which categorically mentions that prior to the approval of the building permission department, an NOC from Tree Authority is mandatory,” Bhosale said.
Manoj Pachpute, another member, said, “This new order by the authorities will prevent developers from cutting unaccounted trees without the prior approval from Tree Authority. Lakhs of trees can be saved, and an equal number of trees can be planted with guarantee as fear will keep looming on the developers.”
VS Mundhe, legal adviser of law department of PMC, said, “The expert members had approached us in October last year with the passed proposal and pointed out the provisions that already exist in the tree act. Accordingly, after going through their contentions and study of provisions in law books, we submitted our legal opinion to the municipal commissioner and also to the member secretary of tree authority.”
Ashok Ghorpade, member secretary of the Tree Authority of PMC, said, “We have communicated the details of resolution and orders to the chief engineer of PMC, who is the sanctioning authority of building permissions.”
