State tops in diverting forest land, activists irked

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 21

Haryana with the second lowest forest cover in the country has the dubious distinction of diverting the maximum forest land for development projects.

Environmental activists are piqued at the way the state has been diverting forest land for development projects in various parts of the state, particularly in the Aravallis.

Haryana topped the country by diverting 7,944.93 hectares of forest areas for non-forestry purposes, according to a reply made in the Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Mahesh Sharma recently.

The reply revealed that the state was followed by Telangana 7,149.88 hectares, Madhya Pradesh 6,420.28 hectares, Odisha 5,859.64 hectares and Maharashtra 5,285.30 hectares in the matter of diversion of forest land.

In contrast, Punjab diverted merely 865.43 hectares of forest area, Chandigarh 40.25 hectares, Himachal Pradesh 745.50 hectares and Delhi 12 hectares in the region.

Some bigger states like Gujarat (1,213.02 hectares), West Bengal (280.42 hectares) and Tamil Nadu (636.01 hectares) diverted much lesser forest area.

“Haryana is the state with the second lowest forest cover (3.6%) and it is diverting the highest amount of forest of all states in the country. It needs to at least declare all “Gair Mumkin Pahad” areas with scrub and open forest cover as legal forest else the legal block forest will fall below 2 percent,” says Environmental analyst Chetan Agarwal.

He alleges that the forest governance in the state is dominated by real estate and infrastructural concerns.

“In Haryana, the PWD Minister has also the charge of the Forest portfolio. In the CM’s office, the Principal Secretary who is in charge of the Town and Country Planning Department has also to look after the Forest Department. Essentially, the forests have no voice in decision making in the state,” Agarwal adds.

Meanwhile, the reply further said that the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) had released Rs 105 crore to Haryana during the past three years for compensatory forestry – Rs 23 crore in 2014-15, Rs 64 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 18 crore in 2016-17.

The Forest Conservation Act, 1980, requires project developers to pay for compensatory afforestation in lieu of forest land diverted for their use. The money goes to a central corpus, the CAMPA Fund.

States receive 10 per cent of the CAMPA Fund to use for afforestation and forest conservation.