AAP assembly committee finds irregularities in NBCC work

NEW DELHI: AAP Assembly committee visited the redevelopment areas and found that in many parts NBCC has not planted new trees after cutting the old ones.

Meanwhile, Minister Imran Hussain sent a legal notice to BJP MLA Vijender Gupta and others for defamatory statements on the tree cutting issue. However, Gupta has denied receiving any notice. "The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Delhi Legislative Assembly along with the officers of Delhi Forest Department, NBCC and Central government's MoUD inspected three project sites of NBCC's smart sub-cities redevelopment of colonies at Nauroji Nagar, Netaji Nagar and Kidwai Nagar in South Delhi on Friday," said a senior AAP leader.

The committee noted that at Nauroji Nagar 1,302 trees have been felled by NBCC and there has been no compensatory plantation against the obligatory 14,650 saplings that should have been planted. "As per the NGT order of September 2017, Raghunath Jha Vs MoUD, NBCC was obligated to plant 14,650 compensatory plants before cutting any tree. The transplanted trees at the project site appeared to have been planted just a night before the committee inspection. There were fresh boulders and rubble at the site that indicated that the place for replantation was recently created to mislead the committee," said a leader.

The team also found that at Kidwai Nagar, the construction which has been going on for last four years is almost complete and around 1,600 trees have been felled by NBCC.