Madurai: The district collector Veera Raghava Rao issued warning to private land owners stating that their lands would be taken over by the government if they failed to remove the seemai karuvelam trees (propospis julifora) from their land.
Following the Madras High Court bench passing an interim order to remove the trees both in government and private lands in 13 districts of southern and central Tamil Nadu recently, the authorities in the respective districts have been taking steps to remove them.
However, the biggest challenges they face in trying to eradicate the seemai karuvelam, which sucks ground water and endangers the environment, was the removal of those trees from patta lands.
The court, in its order, had directed the Collectors of the respective districts to remove the trees and recover double the costs from the land owners if they failed to volunteer to comply with the court order.
On Monday morning, Judges C.R. Selvam and N.Krubakaran inspected the rural areas in Madurai along with the Collector to assess the progress made in removing the trees in the district.
Addressing reporters in the evening, Mr Rao said that out of 49,368 hectares of land covered by the trees, nearly 39,175 hectares belong to private owners. “We have already removed seemai karuvelam from 1,490 hectares of government land in the district.”
In the case of patta lands, the local bodies have issued notice to the owners to remove the trees from their land. “If they failed to do it, the local administration will remove them and recover double the cost from them,” the Collector said.
However, if the private land owners fail to pay the due amount to the local bodies within the stipulated time period, their lands would be attached by the government in a revenue recovery act, he pointed out.
This action would be initiated against the private land owners only after the local bodies write to the district administration, Rao clarified.
