19500 trees to be felled in east Gujarat, centre grants approval

The Forest Advisory Committee under the Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India in its meeting this month recommended the proposal of National Highway Authority of India(NHAI) for approval of diversion of 180.7215 ha forest land(92.450 ha of road sides of Protected Forest land and 88.2715 ha of Reserved Forest) in Panchmahal and Dahod Districts of Gujarat, for widening & strengthening of NH-59 Ahmedabad-Madhya Pradesh Border. This involves removal of about 19,500 forest trees in this area.

The Committee recommended the proposal for approval subject to standard conditions of road widening proposals including construction of rumbles at a regular interval to keep the speed limit of the vehicles on the prescribed limit, say 40 km. / hour.

The Committee noted that altogether about 19,066 trees and 453 bamboos are required to be felled for the purpose of widening and strengthening of NH-59. The Committee also noted that the NHAI had tried to explore the possibility of alternate alignment of the National Highway -59 to reduce diversion of forest land. However the committee found that the present proposal involved minimum forest land for the purpose of diversion.

The existing carriage way of 2 lane of the National Highway is about 10 mts. and existing ROW is 30 mts. The proposed ROW under consideration is 60 mtrs.

The Committee discussed in detail any possibility of reduction of ROW in the proposed widening of National Highway involving Reserved Forest area. It was however noted that the Reserved Forests involved in this proposal was not a continuous patch of forest rather it involves number of a small patches of Reserved Forests. Therefore, reduction of proposed width of the National Highway involving Reserved Forests was not found workable.