On the day the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the UP government?s drive to erect statues, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) sent an investigative team headed by a senior Indian Forest Service officer on a probe of a 33 hectare structure being built by Mayawati in Noida. The results: 6,000 trees have been felled for the statue building project and no Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) has been done for the project, which has raised the hackles of local residents.
EIA?s are required for building projects larger than 20,000 square metres. An EIA is required under a higher grade ?A? category for any project to be built within 10 kmof a protected area. In this case, the structures are a stone?s throw from the Okhla Bird Sanctuary and the large size means that an EIA is required by the Centre.
?The home minister had called to enquire about the status of the project and whether it had obtained various clearances. Also, we have received several complaints on the same issue and thus launched an investigation. I am now waiting for the report to come in,? said MoEF minister Jairam Ramesh.
The permission for tree felling for the structure, which dominates the view on both sides of the Atta Market flyover, was given by the state. But the high tree density ? 6,000 trees over 33 hectares ? means that the area was a deemed forest. ?In UP, if there are 50 trees per hectare, then it is classified as forest area,? a senior team member pointed out.