NEW DELHI: In yet another initiative to improve the business climate in the country, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is in the process of identifying ‘deemed forest’ areas, which are basically not recorded forest areas as per government records, across the country to ensure fewer litigations to projects that may be cleared in such areas.
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The ministry has asked all the states to identify and come up with suggestions on a priority basis on the matter. A meeting of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) of all states was convened by Director General (Forests) S S Garbyal on Monday to take stock of the situation and they were asked to provide the details.
About 15 states have already identified deemed forest areas and submitted it to the ministry.
The “deemed forest” status does not fall in the category of notified or recorded forest in the state revenue records but have characteristics of forest and has also been included by the apex court in the definition of “forest” for consideration of Forest Conservation Act. This means prior approval of the Central government is mandatory for any construction work to happen in the area.
“As of now we don’t have any data of deemed forest in the country and we have asked all states to identify and submit us a detailed report,” said a senior MoEF official.
The MoEF after receiving details from the state Forest Departments will send it to the respective state governments for their nod before notifying deemed forests in respective states.
Several infrastructure projects have been stuck owing to ambiguity over the deemed forest area.