After Supreme Court’s approval, Himachal CM Sukhu orders felling of khair trees in Una, Hamirpur, 3 other forest divisions

The Newz Radar

SHIMLA: The Supreme Court has permitted to axe the khair trees on government forest land in 10 forest divisions in Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said on Friday.

The Chief Minister said the state government had pleaded the case cogently in the apex court and it had delivered its judgment in favour of the state Forest Department. He said that a working plan was ready for felling of khair trees in five forest divisions, including Una, Hamirpur, Bilaspur, Nalagarh and Kutlehar and yield prescribed was 16,500 trees per annum. He said extraction of khair would commence shortly.

The Chief Minister said that preparation of working plan for the remaining five forest divisions, i.e. Nahan, Poanta Sahib, Dharamshala, Nurpur and Dehra, was underway. He said the forest officers would initiate the process of inspecting the forests and counting the khair trees would be conducted to prepare a working plan for these five forest divisions.

Sukhu said that silviculture felling of khair trees was better for forest management and rejuvenation, besides revenue generation for the state exchequer. He said most of the khair trees were decaying due to non-extraction of the timber in time and this was a major obstacle in the direction of better forest management. He said the state government had taken up this matter with the apex court keeping in mind the interests of the state.

The Chief Minister said that the Supreme Court had allowed felling of khair trees in 2018 on an experiment basis to know the results of silviculture felling of khair trees. Now, the apex court was convinced with the opinion of the Forest Department as the Central Empowered Committee had submitted its findings to the apex court and it has allowed the felling of khair trees, he said.