Shimla: A case has been filed against a Himachal Pradesh PWD Engineer, V.K. Awasthi, for felling of 71 trees without the permission during the construction of a road and damaging forest cover in the Mandi district.
The PWD is constructing a road under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna from Hanogi to Bahadi village at a cost of Rs.35 million and had got permission from the central government to use 4.33 hectares of forest land to build the road with authorization of cutting down only 290 tress in that area.
But 71 trees were chopped down from the non-permissable area. Mandi’s Divisional Forest Officer Kunal Satyarthi said, “Despite our repeated notices to the PWD about the violation of forest law, the assistant engineer did not bother. We finally registered a case. Cases against more officials can’t be ruled out.”
However, Awasthi denied this allegation to Times Of India and said that the trees were cut with the permission of center.
Source: Times Of India
Raised in Shimla and originally from Mandi district, Disha wears many caps which includes being part of a lead team of a fast growing IT company based out of Chandigarh. Earlier Disha was associated with My Himachal and visits Shimla regularly.
