Trees felled in Torrent dam submergence zone in Karjat; environment group questions land handover

Torrent Power is building a power project in the Pali Tarfe Kotwal Khalati gram panchayat area of Karjat taluka in Raigad district. Trees are now being felled in the project's submergence area, which has made the Karjat Paryavaran Bachav Samiti (environment protection committee) combative. The question being raised is who gave the land for the trees to be cut.

The Gujarat-based company is building a hydro project in the Saydongar area of Pali Tarfe Kotwal Khalati. Farmers and villagers around the proposed dam are opposing it. Of the land for the project, 640 hectares belongs to the forest department, while the project is to come up on 230 hectares of private land. There are lakhs of trees on the forest land, planted and nurtured by local people through voluntary labour.

Those same trees are now being cut, and the trees in the dam's submergence area are disappearing. Some of the land in the submergence area is private, and trees on that land are also being felled. The groundbreaking ceremony for the Rs 15,000 crore project is likely to be held on November 3. There is talk that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend. It is therefore believed that the Prime Minister may make an aerial survey of the project area, and this is why the Torrent management has taken up the felling of trees in the submergence area.

It is reported that trees are being cut with electric cutters on Torrent's behalf in the forest beyond the tribal wadi in the Saydongar area. Labourers have also been engaged to haul away the felled trees. Trees a hundred years old and older are being cut. All the trees are being felled so that the whole area can be shown without any tree in the way. There is no plan to plant trees on the 640 hectares. The forest department has not given local people any letter saying the land has been handed over to the project.

No such letter has appeared even on social media, yet trees are being cut. This is why the Karjat Paryavaran Bachav Samiti is up in arms. Farmers of Karjat taluka have not given land to the project. Environmentalists in the taluka are asking what kind of world this is if trees are being cut even so. There is widespread anger among people over the felling of trees in the submergence area.