The National Green Tribunal has directed the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to plant at least 10,000 trees within a month in Uttarakhand as part of compensatory tree plantation to make up for hundreds of trees felled during construction of a road from Simli to Gwaldam.
The NGT’s principal bench of Justice Prakash Shrivastava was hearing a petition that complained about the BRO violating environmental norms during the construction of a road in the already fragile and sensitive mountains of Chamoli district of Uttarakhand.
The NGT in September 2022 had formed a joint committee comprising the representatives of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), BRO, Uttarakhand State Pollution Control Board (PCB) along with the District Magistrate and Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Chamoli who have been directed to “verify the factual position and take appropriate remedial action in the violation of environmental norms”.
