Man fights timber mafia to save 90,000 trees

DEFENDING THE HILLS: Dabral has easy solutions to minimise environmental damage in developmental projects.

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New Delhi: He heard the call of the hills and left his city life behind to answer it. Jai Prakash Dabral waged a war against the Power Grid Corporation of India, the timber mafia and the local government to save nearly 90,000 trees in the bio-diverse habitat of Tehri.

Dabral wages one of the biggest environmental battles at ground zero by motivating people in Tadkeshwar, Rudraprayag to start a "chipko-style" campaign which he called Raksha-sutra.

But Dabral knew that the villager's peaceful protest would only provide for a temporary solution. Dabral then decided to move Supreme Court and file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the proposed chopping of trees by Power Grid Corporation.

It took six months and a lot of pushing but the Supreme Court did take notice of Dabral's PIL. Dabral finally got what he and what the people of Tehri were fighting for.

"The Power Grid Corporation had taken a sanction from the Ministry of Environment for 90,000 trees. We intervened after they had cut only about 5,000 trees. And after that we were able to save most of the trees. The number of trees that were felled on the entire transmission line has now been reduced from 90,000 to just about 10,000. That has been the contribution of my movement," says he.

The Supreme Court's directive shook the entire system.

Dabral started receiving death threats from Tehri's local timber mafia — the multi-crore nexus that operates between the Timber merchants, the Forest Department and the local government.

Undeterred Dabral decided to expose this nexus to the SC and to the media.

"Each tree is valued at around Rs 30,000 and the value of 90,000 trees would have been around Rs 270 crore. But then the number of trees which would have been cut would have been much much more than what it is now and the project would have had more than twice the money it has currently from the Uttranchal government. That is the volume of money involved in this. Right from the Chief Minister, the Forest Minister, the Forest Department officials, the DFO, the ranger — everybody is getting a cut," says Dabral.

Six years later, Dabral has taken his battle to the next level. He is now actively seeking from the Central Government, a guideline for construction of transmission lines in the Himalayan region that is environment friendly.

A pro-development man, Dabral offers some easy and practical solutions to minimise the environmental damage that takes place under the guise of development projects.

"Uttrakhand is going to have 66 dams, they have already planned for that, and they are going to come up in next 10-15 years. For 66 dams there are going to be atleast 132 transmission lines. Now what I want through this particular case in the Supreme Court is a guideline for transmission lines in hilly areas. The compensation methods which have to be used have to be different from the compensation methods of the plains," says he.

Twelve years ago, Dabral stepped out of the corporate boardroom to keep a promise — a promise that is his single biggest motivation till date.

"It was the promise which I had given to my grandmother. When I was around nine years old, she had told me that the curse of the hills is that every person who gets good education or makes good money after migrating from the hills to the plains never thinks of coming back and investing his knowledge, his skills, his resources, his money in the hills. But I had promised her that when I have done something in life I will come back to the hills and contribute to the development of the hills. This is ambition for me. Whatever life I have left, I am going to devote entirely to the hills," he concludes.