New Delhi: Supreme Court on Wednesday approved the Forest Research Institute’s plan to carry out the first tree census in Delhi and also gave its nod to the Dehradun-based institute’s proposal to enhance the green cover in the city. The two exercises will be conducted simultaneously — the census in three phases over a three-and-a-half-year period and the increasing of green cover over four years.
The census will help track tree populations area-wise and check illegal felling. The court took this step in view of the fact that Delhi witnesses felling of five trees per hour on an average. A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan allowed FRI to go ahead with the exercises but asked it to try to complete the tasks in a shorter span and also reduce budget.
The court also accepted the submission of additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati that the money to undertake census should be released from the CAMPA fund. She assured that all necessary help would be provided to the institute but said the exercise should be concluded in a shorter time.
As per FRI, the exercise will be carried out in three phases, with the first phase aiming at standardising the methodology for tree census — it will take 15 months. The second phase is about development of an action plan that will be done in three months, and the final phase is implementation, which will take two years.
“FRI proposes an estimated budget of Rs 443 lakh for the execution of phase one and phase two on standardisation of methodology and pilot trial for the development of action plan for implementation in phase three,” the institute said in its affidavit.
It said the Tree Authority and the Delhi forest department will undertake the census, and FRI will provide technical support and capacity building to the department’s officials in undertaking the exercise besides monitoring and evaluation. The final report will be submitted to the court by the authority.
It said the institute will design and develop a web portal and a mobile app for the census. Regarding enhancing green cover in the national capital territory (NCT), FRI placed before the court a four-year action plan to form a base to launch a massive afforestation drive to increase the forest and tree cover of the area falling within the limits of the govt of the NCT of Delhi.
National Forest Policy mandates that one-third of total land area of country should be under forest or tree cover.