New Delhi: Around 33 trees were heavily pruned and five cut down in the NCERT campus on Aurobindo Road without permission from the forest department.
Acting on a complaint from an NGO, a team of forest rangers visited the campus on Wednesday and found out about the incident, a forest department official said.
Cutting and even pruning of trees require permission from authorities under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act.
He said the NCERT campus had applied for permission to cut and prune trees. However, before the forest department could take a look into the application, the trees were pruned and some were even cut down.
A report was submitted on Wednesday by the forest rangers, who visited the spot. A decision on further action would be soon taken, the official said.
According to complainant Verhaen Khanna from the New Delhi Nature Society (NDNS), more trees were pruned than recorded by the forest department.
“A whole row of trees along the fence were heavily pruned. There were eucalyptus and semal trees among the ones that were chopped,” he said.
There has been a movement against tree cutting by various NGOs and citizens in Delhi, which started after it was reported that over 16,000 trees would be chopped off for a redevelopment project in South Delhi.
