Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Days after the NGT banned any construction in Borevan Park, Sant Hirdaram Nagar, the forest department has put up a notice board mentioning the same.
Advocate Harshvardhan Tiwari said, “RTI activist Nitin Saxena had filed a petition in NGT against the ongoing illegal constructions in Borevan Park. After the tribunal’s order, the forest department has installed a notice board prohibiting any kind of construction in the park.”
The forest department in its notice board has mentioned that after the order of NGT all the construction and under construction activities at Borevan Park carried out by Bhopal Municipal Corporation have been banned considering it illegal, and notice boards have been put up informing the same to the general public.
Any violation will be considered as a criminal act, it mentions further. Hearing a petition of the RTI activist, the tribunal has constituted a committee of principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), State Wetland Authority and Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (MPPCB), to look into the illegal constructions in Borevan Park.
The committee has been told that if it finds that trees have been illegally cut or any construction has been raised on the forest land of Borevan - which is a ‘deemed forest’ in the light of Supreme Court’s judgment without prior approval of Competent Authority,- the said construction activities undertaken by Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) shall be restrained.
BMC, with an intention to construct a yoga/meditation shed, invited tenders and finalised the same by an order dated February 22, 2023. For the above construction, in the forest area, it had to cut about 100 trees for the purpose whereof a letter was submitted to BMC additional commissioner(horticulture branch and tree officer), seeking permission which was granted on May 2, 2023.
