The National Green Tribunal has pulled up the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department and Bhopal Municipal Corporation for failing to submit records on 80,000 compensatory trees linked to road widening in the city, while also seeking details of funds and plantation work carried out across the state over the past five years.
The trees were to be planted as compensation for 8,000 trees cut during the widening of the national highway between Ayodhya Bypass and Asharam tri-section. The NGT said the required information had not been placed before it despite earlier directions in the case filed by Nitin Saxena against the National Highways Authority of India and other respondents.
According to the directions cited in the tribunal proceedings, 10,000 trees were to be planted along avenues and road medians. Another 70,000 trees were to be planted on land allotted by the Bhopal collector in Huzoor tehsil. The plantation responsibility involved the BMC and the Divisional Forest Officer of the Paryavaran Vaniki Mandal, the Forest Department’s social forestry division.
The tribunal also raised questions over whether funds deposited in 2025 had been used for plantation during the 2026 monsoon. It directed the Forest Department to explain why the plantation had not been taken up from those funds, according to the report submitted by the divisional forest officer.
In an earlier order dated September 7, 2026, the tribunal had directed the agencies to carry out casualty replacement of plantations undertaken during the previous five years. The purpose was to bring survival levels to 100 per cent through replacement planting during the 2026 monsoon. The latest direction requires the Forest Department to complete this process across all plantations conducted during that five-year period.
The NGT recorded that the Forest Department had not filed a compliance report in response to its previous order. It directed the divisional forest officer, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force, and the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board to submit reports in accordance with the earlier directions.
The BMC was also directed to file its reply before the next hearing. The tribunal noted that the civic body had not submitted a response in compliance with the previous order. The counsel for the MP Pollution Control Board sought additional time to file the board’s report, which the tribunal allowed for 10 days.
The proceedings place the implementation of compensatory afforestation under scrutiny beyond the original road-widening project. The tribunal is seeking information not only on the Bhopal plantation but also on funds deposited for compensatory planting against trees cut for development projects across Madhya Pradesh during the last five years, along with the number of trees actually planted.
The case is scheduled to be heard next on October 29. The Forest Department, BMC and other agencies are expected to submit the compliance reports and plantation records before that hearing.
