Large-scale tree felling near Bhimashankar?

District collector Chandrakant Dalvi on Monday asked Khed tehsildar and the forest rights committee to conduct an inquiry into the allegations by the local villagers against the clean energy company, Enercon, which is setting up windmills near Bhimashankar wildlife sanctuary.

Dalvi had convened a meeting of the officials from Khed and the company officials along with villagers. The villagers had alleged that the company had cut more than two lakh trees while the company had claimed that it had cut only 26,000 trees as per the permission of the
authorities.

The villagers had also alleged that more area was used for constructing the approach road by the company.

Dalvi asked the tehsildar and the committee to conduct a detailed survey to ascertain as to how many trees were cut. He asked the villagers to give representation to the local revenue officials about the damage to crops and their fields after the company had used their fields to build the approach road.

The company said the project would generate 116 MW of power on an area of 701.11 acres at Kud village in Khed taluka in Pune district, which is in the vicinity of the Bhimashankar sanctuary.

The company officials maintained that being a non-conventional energy generation project, the company had paid Rs24 lakh to Maharashtra Energy Development Authority (Meda) while
constructing the road.

Dalvi asked revenue officials to ascertain whether the company had used the prescribed area for constructing the approach road and asked the villagers to get the panchanamas done for the said land to ascertain the facts.