Delay in Tree Cutting Permissions impacting Mega Projects in Bengaluru

Did you Know? - Tree cutting permissions and execution take 6 months to 2 Years+ ONLY in Bangalore City 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳

Many of us are frustrated why mega projects in Bengaluru takes exceptionally longer time. We found out that after land acquisition challenges, the second biggest reason for delay was the time taken for Tree cutting permission

In addition, there are also many trees left right on the road resulting in high risk of fatal accidents

We took up the investigation of why does it take so long to get Tree cutting Permission after reading the news where Supreme Court dismissed a PIL saying “Will the Metro fly in the air??”

The following are our key findings

1. W.P.17841/2018 filed by Dattatraya T Devare and Bangalore Environment Trust(BET) removed the powers of the Dept. Conservator of Forests(DCF) to approve Tree cutting and placed it with a Tree Expert Committee. In a subsequent order, dated 20.08.2020 Honourable High Court ordered to reconstitute the committee with a Retired IFS Officer as Chairman and Senior Professors from GKVK, IISC and Jnana Bharthi university as members

2. This “Centralised Decision Making” has created a huge backlog for tree cutting permissions

3. The Preparatory work includes measuring, Geo tagging and photographing of each tree to be cut and inspections/reviews by DRFO, RFO, ACF and DCF

4. The Tree committee meets once a month and when a request is placed in the agenda, it is assigned to 1 of the members

5. Later the TEC member visits the spot and makes an onground assessment and creates a detailed report for each tree to be presented in the next meeting

6. Public notice for 50+ Tree cutting and Public hearing is mandatory and the objections need to be reviewed

7. The TEC reviews every single tree to be cut and categorises approval for cutting or relocation. This may happen over 2-3 meetings. Any changes in the count of trees to be cut because of change in project scope will result in additional delays

8. Finally the Tree officer passes the order very clearly listing Trees to be relocated and Trees to be felled

9. The Concerned Government department like BMRCL or BBMP need to seek budget approval and Tender Process as per their internal process for Tree relocation

10. Only after the successful relocation of the trees, then only the felling of Trees can commence

11. In many Mega Projects, Bangalore Environment Trust, contests the decision by the Tree Expert Committee in the High Court, then in Supreme court or in a recent case, filed a petition saying the “Tree Officer” signing and releasing the order is not acceptable. *Add another 3-6 months delay for these Court cases*

12. Things get more complex when Forest department land has to be handed over for the Project. This would need an equivalent amount of land to be assessed and handed over to the forest department. *Add another 6 months to 1 year delay*

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Is this happening only in Bangalore??

YES…YES…YES!! The Tree Officer in other Districts where ever the Tree Preservation Act is applicable can provide the overall approval in 2-3 months. In some of the cites there are no approvals needed for Tree felling also. Only for specific tree species, permission for transport after felling is needed

Bangalore is the PIL Capital of India and this is one classic example where the PSEUDO-ACTIVISTS are causing more damage to the environment by delaying mega projects like the Metro. In addition, each one of us loose precious time every day and waste 30-120 minutes additionally because of traffic congestion and drastically increasing the air pollution