SC panel seeks details of policy allowing housing projects in delisted forest areas

The Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee has sought details of the recent Punjab Government policy for the approval and regularisation of low-impact green habitats in forest areas that have been removed from the purview of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), 1900.

Committee Chairman Siddhanta Das has written to Punjab Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, seeking details of the specified portions of the delisted land across the state and related apex court orders.

A top government functionary said the committee’s intervention had come at a time when foresters and environmentalists were questioning the policy, alleging that it aimed to benefit influential persons, including politicians and serving and retired bureaucrats. They alleged that the policy opened the doors for regularisation of hundreds of illegal farmhouses in delisted areas that would have otherwise faced demolition.

A total of 55,000 hectares of land — abutting forests with rich flora and fauna in several parts — has been excluded from the PLPA.

Warning that the policy would have far-reaching ecological implications for the fragile kandi belt in lower Shivalik Hills stretching from Mohali to Pathankot districts, foresters, environmentalists and the Public Action Committee (PAC)-Mattewara argued that the move was “legally untenable, scientifically indefensible and potentially in contempt of the Supreme Court directions”.

Seeking withdrawal of the policy, the PAC-Mattewara had, in a representation to the Punjab Chief Minister, maintained that Shivalik Hills were characterised by unconsolidated geology, steep slopes and high sediment mobility, where even limited construction could destabilise slopes. The outfit expressed serious concern over the state not waiting for the Centre’s approval to the impending declaration of the eco-sensitive zone around the Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary and not adhering to the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980.

Officials in the Punjab Forest Department, referring to a March 2015 communication from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to the state, pointed out that while removing land in Mohali, Ropar, Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur districts from the PLPA’s purview, the ministry had specifically stated that “such areas would continue to be treated as forestland under the FCA-1980”.

“The owners of such land may utilise delisted PLPA areas for bona fide use of agriculture and for sustaining their livelihood,” the ministry had said.

A senior official said when 55,000 hectares were delisted in 2010, the state Forest Department had conducted an on-ground assessment of agricultural activity and the scope for sustaining livelihoods. Since then, the official said, the state had not approached either the Centre or the Supreme Court regarding the rapidly changing land use in these areas. “Now, all of a sudden, low-density housing has been permitted in land abutting forests,” he said.