Compensatory Plantation Not Done: How to Enforce It

Compensatory plantation is a legal condition, not a gesture. When a tree officer allows felling, when forest land is diverted, or when a project gets environmental clearance, the permission usually says how many trees must be planted, where, by whom and for how long they must be maintained. If that has not happened, or the saplings were planted once and left to die, you can enforce it. Get the exact condition in writing through RTI, check the planting site yourself, complain to the authority that imposed the condition, and if it does nothing, ask the NGT to direct compliance or, where the tribunal has already ordered planting, file an execution application.

This guide is for residents, RWAs, villagers and local groups who were told that trees cut near them would be replaced, and who have since seen nothing, or a row of dead sticks inside broken tree guards. It explains where planting conditions come from, how to find out exactly what was promised, how to tell real plantation from paper plantation, and how to get the condition enforced.

If the trees have not been cut yet, start with our page on illegal tree cutting complaints. If trees were moved rather than replaced and then died, see tree transplantation failures.

The essentials

Trees were cut on a promise of replanting, and nothing was planted. What can we do?

Start by finding out exactly what was promised, because "they said they would plant trees" cannot be enforced, while "the permission dated so-and-so requires 250 saplings of native species on the strip along the drain, to be maintained for three years by the applicant" can. File an RTI with the authority that allowed the felling, usually the tree officer or forest department, asking for the permission, the planting condition, the site, any deposit taken and any compliance report filed.

Next, go and look. Visit the site named in the condition, count what is standing, photograph it with the date and location, and note dead saplings, empty pits, broken guards and signs of no watering. Compare it with the condition. Then write to the authority that imposed the condition, attaching both the condition and your photographs, and ask it to inspect, issue notice to the person responsible and get the planting done, using any deposit if necessary.

If the authority does not respond, escalate to the senior officer and the District Magistrate, and then consider the NGT. If the planting was ordered by the NGT itself, the right step is an execution application, not a fresh case.

Types of compensatory plantation and who enforces each

Most failures happen in the first and third rows, where the applicant is supposed to plant and nobody checks. Compensatory afforestation for forest land diversion has its own fund and system, discussed further below.

How to find out exactly what was promised

An RTI application is usually the quickest route. Address it to the public information officer of the authority that imposed the condition and ask for specific documents: the permission or approval; the planting condition with the number of saplings, species, site and maintenance period; any security deposit or payment receipt; any compliance or survival report filed by the applicant; and any inspection report on the planting. A reply is due within 30 days. Ask for the documents, not for opinions, because a request phrased as "why has planting not been done" usually gets a non-answer.

For projects with environmental clearance, the clearance letter is often available on the regulator's website, and project proponents must submit half-yearly compliance reports on EC conditions. Those reports frequently claim that plantation has been done, with a number. That number is what you then check on the ground. Our guide on EC conditions not followed explains how to use compliance reports in a complaint.

If the trees were cut on forest land, ask the divisional forest officer for the forest approval, the compensatory afforestation scheme, the land identified for it and the planting records. These exist for every approved diversion.

Checking the planting site yourself

Go with two or three people, on a clear day, with a phone that records location on photographs. Walk the site named in the condition and count: living saplings, dead saplings, empty pits and missing guards. Photograph a sample of each, and take a few wide shots that show the whole area. Note whether there is any sign of watering, fencing or a caretaker. If the site is locked or fenced, photograph it from outside and record that access was not possible.

Do this more than once if you can, for example just after the monsoon and again at the end of the dry season. Saplings planted for an inspection often die within one summer. A record over two seasons shows the difference between a condition that was met and one that was met only on the day of the photograph.

When Advocate B.K. Singh prepares a plantation complaint, he insists on a simple count sheet: site, date, saplings alive, saplings dead, pits empty, with photographs numbered to match. A single page like that is easier for an officer, or a tribunal committee, to act on than a folder of loose photographs.

Signs that the plantation exists only on paper

How to enforce a compensatory plantation condition

What to ask for in a plantation complaint

A complaint that asks for specific action is easier to act on than one that only reports a failure.

For projects with environmental clearance, ask the regulator to check the plantation figures in the half-yearly reports against the site. Project owners who want to get these reports right can see our EC compliance report page.

Planting is not enough: the duty to maintain

A condition that says "plant 500 saplings" is rarely satisfied by putting 500 saplings in the ground and walking away. Most planting conditions, and almost all tribunal directions, include maintenance for a stated period: watering, protection from cattle and vandals, and replacing saplings that die. Where the condition is silent on maintenance, the purpose of the condition, which is to replace the trees lost, still supports a demand that the saplings survive.

Ask for survival, not planting, figures. A useful request to the authority is that the person responsible report the number of saplings surviving at fixed intervals, replace dead ones within a season, and continue until the plantation is established. Where survival has been poor, ask that the period of maintenance be extended. This is the point at which many tree cases quietly succeed or fail, and residents who keep visiting the site make the difference.

Security deposits and what happens to them

Some tree officers take a security deposit from the applicant when they grant felling permission, refundable only if the replacement planting is done and survives for a period. Where such a deposit exists, it is your best lever. If the applicant has not planted, the deposit can be forfeited and used by the department to do the planting itself. Ask, in your RTI, whether a deposit was taken and whether it has been refunded. A deposit refunded without any survival check is a red flag worth putting in a complaint.

Where planting was to be done by the department itself using money paid by the applicant, the question becomes what the department did with the money. Ask for the planting records and the site. Departments that are asked specific questions in writing tend to produce either the plantation or an explanation.

Can paying money replace the planting?

Sometimes the person responsible offers to pay instead of planting, or a department proposes to accept a payment and plant later. Money can be part of the answer, but it is not a substitute for trees unless someone is actually bound to plant them with it. When a payment is proposed, ask who will plant, where, by when, and who will report survival. Without those answers, a payment simply closes the file.

Tribunals generally prefer restoration on the ground to a cheque. Where the NGT awards environmental compensation for tree loss, it often ties the money to a planting and maintenance plan carried out by a named authority, with reporting. If you are negotiating or making submissions, ask for the same: compensation earmarked for planting in the affected locality, not paid into a general account.

There is also the question of what happens when the project changes hands. Conditions of an environmental clearance travel with the project when the clearance is transferred, so a new owner cannot say the plantation was the previous owner's problem. Name both in your complaint if you are not sure who is responsible now.

Compensatory afforestation when forest land is diverted

When forest land is diverted for a project under the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980, the approval usually requires compensatory afforestation, generally on identified non-forest or degraded forest land, at the cost of the user agency. The money goes into funds managed under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016, and the state forest department carries out the planting. The approval and its conditions list the land and the scheme.

If that afforestation has not happened, write to the divisional forest officer and the state's nodal officer for forest approvals, asking for the land identified, the planting records and the survival status. Because the 1980 Adhiniyam is in Schedule I of the NGT Act, a substantial failure to carry out compensatory afforestation can be taken to the NGT under section 14, within 6 months of when the cause of action arose. If you want to challenge the diversion itself rather than enforce its conditions, see our guide on challenging forest land diversion; that appeal has a 30-day limit from communication.

When the NGT ordered planting and it still was not done

Many NGT orders in tree and project cases direct planting of a stated number of trees, maintenance for a period, and a compliance report by a date. If the report was never filed, or was filed but the site tells a different story, the remedy is an execution application. Under section 25 of the NGT Act, an NGT order is executable as a decree of a civil court, and under section 26, failure to comply is punishable with imprisonment up to 3 years, fine up to ₹10 crore, or both (up to ₹25 crore for companies), with additional fines for continuing failure.

An execution application should attach the order, the compliance report if any, and your count sheet and photographs. The tribunal commonly asks the authority or a committee to verify and report. Our guide on the NGT execution application sets out the procedure, and the one on objecting to a joint committee report helps if the verification report glosses over the dead saplings.

Mistakes people make, and when not to file

The commonest mistake is waiting years, then complaining without any record of what was planted or when. A second is complaining to the wrong office: the municipal parks department may have nothing to do with a condition imposed by the tree officer or the SEIAA. A third is accepting a compliance report at face value. Reports are written by the person who has to comply; they need to be checked on the ground. A fourth is filing a fresh NGT case where an earlier NGT order already covers the planting, which wastes time; execution is the right route.

Honest limits matter here too. If planting was done properly and a reasonable share of saplings has survived despite a harsh summer, a complaint about the rest is better made as a request for replacement than as a legal case. If the condition gives the planting a few years and only a few months have passed, give it a season and keep watching. Advocate B.K. Singh usually advises groups to send one well-documented letter to the authority first and to keep the tribunal for when that letter is ignored.

Related guides on trees

If the replanting condition came out of a builder's felling, see builder cutting trees without permission; if it came from a road project, see tree cutting for a road project. Where the authority simply will not act on your complaints, our guide on an NGT case against an authority that will not act explains the next step. If you are an applicant who needs to plan planting properly, see tree felling and transplantation permission.