Mullaperiyar tree-felling row: process to grant permission was on for some time
The Hindu
Officials say no clearance required under Forest Conservation Act as per a legal opinion given in 1997
The process of granting the now-frozen permission to Tamil Nadu to fell 15 trees in a 40-cent area near the Mullaperiyar dam site to facilitate Tamil Nadu to strengthen the baby dam was going on for some time, suggest a set of documents accessed by The Hindu.
Records of the third secretary-level meeting between Kerala and Tamil Nadu to review the Parambikulam-Aliyar agreement, Pandiyar-Punnapuzha scheme, Mullaperiyar dam and other interstate matters on September 17 indicate that Kerala’s principal secretary for forest and wildlife told the meeting that “permission for cutting down the identified 15 trees is being processed”.
In 2011, the Karnataka government announced that five botanical gardens will be developed on the lines of the Lalbagh Botanical Garden in Bengaluru across the State. But according to the latest developments, there will only be four such gardens as the Horticulture Department is most likely to drop the project that was supposed to come up in Chikkaballapura district.