In the wake of tree-felling incidences in city, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has formed a new tree committee recently. Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B chaired a meeting in which he formed the committee in presence of senior officials of Garden and other departments. According to sources, Municipal Commissioner is Chairman of the committee. Along with him, two senior officials of Garden Department and three environment experts are likely to be included in the committee. To improve the green cover and conserve heritage trees in the State, the State Government, recently, constituted the Maharashtra State Tree Authority exactly seven months after amending the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act, 1975.

 

Recent amendment has classified 50-year-old trees as heritage ones and the permission of felling of more than 200 trees will be provided by the State Tree Authority. Earlier, the local tree committee was decision-making authority. Now, the new local tree committee will take decisions of the fate of below 200 trees in the city. If the local tree committee receives any application for tree-felling of a tree above 50 years of age then it needs to get State Tree Authority’s permission.