Forest department relents, allows tree planting near Bela village after Sayaji Shinde questions refusal
Actor Sayaji Shinde says senior forest officials in Nagpur have agreed to allow plantation on the site near Bela and to remove encroachments.
The Bela gram panchayat in Nagpur district had asked the forest department for land near the village to develop a devrai, a sacred grove. Sayaji Shinde, the well-known film actor and head of the Sahyadri Devrai Foundation, was also involved in the effort through his organisation. The forest department, however, refused to give the land. Its officials said the site is reserved forest, so a devrai could not be created there and even tree planting would not be permitted.
Shinde was angered by the refusal. He asked angrily why permission should be required to plant trees. Shinde and his associates allege that there is not a single tree on the land the forest department calls reserved forest. Instead, they say, some people have encroached on it and begun farming illegally.
After the matter came to light, Shinde met senior forest department officials in Nagpur today. He claimed that the officials accepted there is no rule that bars tree planting in forest areas.
Shinde said he met the senior officials to question the department about its wrongful conduct. He said the officials have assured him that trees will now be planted on the site near Bela village and that the forest department will remove the encroachment there. "We will also ask for another 25 acres at this location," Shinde said.
Shinde made it clear that they would not now get into an argument over who was right and who was wrong. He said they would instead focus on planting as many trees as possible.
Shinde also spoke about the next plan. "We will now set up many devrais in Vidarbha too. We are trying to create a hundred devrais in the coming period. We will also try to ensure that each devrai has trees of at least 500 species," he said.
Shinde said that in the last 100 years, people have caused themselves great harm by felling trees on a huge scale. He also expressed hope that, given the present drought conditions, people will at least now become serious about tree planting.
