HYDERABAD: Telangana government’s Kaleswaram project, which recently got forest clearance, will require diversion of 3,186 hectares of natural forests. But to compensate this, the government is offering to the Centre a rocky and hilly terrain where there is not much scope for any vegetation.
This was made clear in the Site Inspection Report (SIR) that was conducted by the officials of ministry of forests, a copy of which is available with Express.
The SIR provides details of the forest areas that are to be diverted and nature of the non-forest lands being offered in compensation by the Telangana government. Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 gives permission to divert forest lands for non-forestry purposes if equivalent non-forest land is afforested as a ‘compensation’ for the lost forest area.
While Telangana government claims to have undertaken world’s largest afforestation campaign ‘‘Telangana ku Haritha Haaram’’ it seems to believe only in word and not ín spirit of compensatory afforestation clause of the FCA.
The SIR mentions that of the 3,367 hectares of non-forest land offered by Telangana for compensatory afforestation, 682 hectares was unfit for growing plants and recommended that this area be replaced with land elsewhere for afforestation.
It was also observed that some of the lands that were offered for compensatory afforestation were actually reserve forests. While the SIR speaks exclusively of just the 682 hectares, going through the report carefully, one understands that almost all land parcels offered by Telangana government are rocky and hilly, having sparse vegetation.
The site inspection report of almost all non-forest lands offered as compensation by Telangana government mentions, “even though chunks of non-forest area are available in plains of the district, the revenue authorities could not allocate the same stating that the plains are to be left as grazing ground poromboke lands.”
TS has only 14 pc forest cover
Telangana’s forest cover is very low. Just 14.72 percent of state’s geographical area is forests, as per the State of Forests Report-2015. Only 16,504.33 sq km of the state’s entire area, which stands at 1,12,102 sq km, is forests.