Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding proposal to establish more wood based industries in Uttar Pradesh, 18/02/2020
Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Samvit Foundation Vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Others dated 18/02/2020 regarding validity of proposal to establish more wood based industries/saw mills in the State of Uttar Pradesh without correctly determining availability of timber to sustain the same.
Grievance of the applicant is that vide notice dated 01.03.2019, the State proposes to give license for 1350 new units which is not viable in view of limited wood available in the State. The NGT said there would be hardly any industrial wood actually available for new wood based industries, based on data made available by the state of Uttar Pradesh.
"In these circumstances, if new industries are allowed to open, based on wrong estimation of availability of timber, a situation may arise when there may not be any timber to be allotted to the unit or the industry may resort to illegal means to procure round timber in order to keep its unit afloat. Such a situation may not be allowed to come up in view of ‘Precautionary’ principle of environmental law. State should therefore make an inventory species wise and district wise and also have species wise consumption data of all the wood based industries and their capacity to utilize them and not proceed with the present proposal till further exercise of making inventory and assessment of actual availability of timber / raw material is done," the NGT order said.
The tribunal quashed the notice dated March 1, 2019 issued by the state of Uttar Pradesh for establishing new wood based industries/saw mills and all provisional licenses given in pursuance thereof.