Village under scanner for ‘illegal’ apple trees also a symbol of prosperity the fruit brought

Here, houses are custom-made, catering to the needs of the fruit trade, featuring a garage, a storeroom full of crates for transporting fruits and makeshift structures for workers and their families employed for the upkeep of orchards.

Ironically, however, more than two dozen firearms were taken into possession from residents of this serene Chaithla village, home to around 34 households, under Section 164 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) to ensure peaceful execution of the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s order to clear forest land of encroached apple plantation, according to a senior police officer.

Section 164 of the BNSS, effective from July 12 to 18, prohibits the carrying of arms in and around Chaithla and requires all licensed weapons to be deposited at the Kotkhai police station.

Chaithla is one of the first villages where the eviction drive was launched to clear encroached forest land by locals by felling apple trees, following the HC direction.

“After the 1990s, people in Himachal truly began to see prosperity in cultivating apple orchards, and a handful of residents in Chaithla could not remain untouched by this wave,” said a member of Pandli Gram Panchayat, under which Chaithla falls. “A key contributing factor was the Timber Distribution (TD) Rights, which allowed locals residing in forested areas to use fallen trees, mainly deodar, for house construction and other purposes. Over time, people began exploiting these rights, clearing forest land adjacent to their holdings and planting apple trees. And, Chaithla made rapid strides forward due to its unique climatic conditions as it is located at the top of the Chaithla valley.”

Apple trees in Chaithla are part of the first generation of plantations, and are now 35 to 40 years old, producing largely the Royal Delicious variety apples of the highest quality in large quantities.

“Some of the trees, now facing the axe, were planted on forest land and yield between 25 and 30 cartons per season, each weighing around 20 kg. The price of a single carton ranges from Rs 3,200 to Rs 4,800, especially for the Royal Delicious variety commonly grown in Chaithla,” said an orchard owner standing next to one of his ageing apple trees supported by wooden props embedded in the soil.

“You can estimate that a fully grown tree, about 40 to 45 years old, produces apples worth around Rs 1.20 lakh annually. Some villagers enjoyed this income for years, but they have now lost more than 100 such trees in the eviction drive,” he said.

Acknowledging the loss of his trees, he said, “As apple trees grow older, they need support to stand. Every season, the weight of fruits increases the strain on old and weaker branches. The older the tree, the more fruit it bears.”

Explaining the reason behind the prosperity of apple growers in villages like Chaithla, Deepak Singha, a horticulturist and fruit grower in the Kotgarh region, said, “There are specific reasons why Chaithla witnessed success in recent decades. First, most of the apple trees here are of the first generation, planted in the 1910s or 1920s in Kotgarh and some parts of Kullu. As trees in those regions aged and ended their natural life, the first-generation trees attract more attention for their superior fruit quality.”

“Second, the trees in Chaithla were grown from seedlings rather than rootstocks. Fruit trees grown from seedlings are more valuable and produce better quality apples than those grown from rootstocks, which have started arriving in the market in the past one decade,” he added.

However, unlike others, who call for a delay in the eviction drive and urge the government to take over mature orchards instead of destroying them, Singha holds a stricter view: “I believe all illegal encroachments must be removed across the state. But I do have concerns for landless marginalised farmers cultivating apples in less than five bighas of forest land. The government should introduce a policy to support such farmers.”

The ongoing eviction drive in Chaithla, where approximately 300 bighas of forest land, roughly 20 hectares, have been encroached upon, will continue till July 18.

A forest officer says, “Chaithla is a far-flung village on the hilltop, making communication difficult, like many remote areas in Himachal. The road in this village was constructed in the 1990s.”

The drive stems from a complaint lodged by Krishan Chand Sarta of Jhadag village under Jubbal tehsil in 2014, alleging mass encroachment of forest land by villagers cultivating apples, potatoes and peas, and raising permanent structures. The complaint also flagged the inaction by the forest department officials.