New Delhi: The NCERT has been fined with over Rs 5 lakh by the Delhi Forest Dep-artment for heavily pru-ning 33 trees and cutting five inside others within their campus without permission. Acting on a complaint from an NGO on August 7, a team of forest rangers had visited the campus of the National Council of Educational Research and Tra-ining (NCERT) and had found that five trees we-re cut and 33 heavily pruned.

Cutting and even pruning of trees require permission from authorities under the Delhi Pre-servation of Trees Act. A Forest official said, the NCERT campus had applied for permission to cut and prune trees, but before the department could take a look into the application, the trees were pruned and some were cut. A report was submitted on Aug-ust 8 by the forest ran-gers who visited the spot and a decision has been taken to impose a fine of over Rs 5 lakh on the NCERT registrar, the official said. Complai-nant Verhaen Khanna said the fine should be a lesson for everyone and it would have cost way less if the authorities had just waited for the permission from the forest department.