Tree felling permissions in Hyderabad passed with signatures of unauthorised persons

The District Tree Protection Committee (TPC), which is in the eye of the storm since protests erupted against tree felling near the Kasu Brahmananda Reddy (KBR) National Park here, has not been adhering to the membership protocol in its permissions.

Several of its permissions have signatures of persons who are not authorised. Even the institutions’ names, which are represented in the committee, are misspelt with the members signing anyway.

Several questions are being raised about the legal sanctity of the government order from 2008 constituting the tree protection committee, with activist Lubna Sarwath at the forefront dismissing the committee as ultra vires.

The committee was constituted with the express mandate of examining the applications for tree felling and giving appropriate instructions for transplantation, felling or retention as the case may be, and monitoring the compensatory plantation as well.

Ms. Sarwath says, such authority rests with the District WALTA Authority constituted under the The Telangana Water, Land and Trees Act, 2002, which is defunct in Telangana. The Tree Protection Committee’s composition has not changed since 2008, with the same NGO representation continuing for the past 18 years.

Be that as it may, permission copies over the recent years reveal that the signatures beneath don’t match with that of the actual members of the committee.

As per the G.O., the committee’s members include the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Environment) as chairman, Conservator of Forests, Hyderabad as member-convener, and director (Urban Forestry) of HMDA, Divisional Forest Officer (now District Forest Officer), Hyderabad, Additional Commissioner (Urban Biodiversity/Horticulture), GHMC, Superintendent Engineer (Roads & Buildings), Ranga Reddy District as official members and one member each from Forum for Better Hyderabad, WWF-India, United Federation of Residents Welfare Association (UFERWAS) as NGO members.

The TPC order permitting the felling of the trees near the KBR National Park had eight signatures — of the Executive Engineer from the Projects wing of GHMC, Director, Urban Biodiversity, GHMC, two members from the UFERWAS, one member each from WWF-India’s regional chapter and Forum for Better Hyderabad, the DFO, Hyderabad, and Forest Range Officer of the area concerned.

Of these, the GHMC Executive Engineer and the FRO are not even members of the committee, while two members instead of one, signed on behalf of UFERWAS. Signatures of the chairman and member-convener are absent, so is the sign of Superintendent Engineer (Roads & Buildings).

Similar is the permission copy with regard to flyovers/ underpasses at Khajaguda, which was signed by FRO, Chilukuru, Forest Divisional Officer, Shamshabad, District Forest Officer, Hyderabad, Executive Engineer, GHMC, two persons from UFERWAS and GHMC’s Director of Urban Biodiversity. The name of UFERWAS was once misspelt as United Federation of Resistance Welfare Association, regardless of which the member signed.

A member of the TPC, pleading anonymity, said the permissions had the signatures of all persons who were part of the field inspection, hence of the non-members. Pressure on the Forest department by the government results in pressure on the committee, due to which the inspections are conducted with whoever is present.