BHUBANESWAR: The state government has asked the Forest department to expedite process for forest diversion of 32 projects on priority.
Chairing the third coordination meeting to resolve forest-related issues and ensure expeditious processing of forest diversion proposals for major infrastructure projects, additional chief secretary (ACS) of Forest, Satyabrata Sahu stressed the need to facilitate submission of forest diversion proposals for projects to be taken up by the industries in the state.
Accordingly, he asked the officials concerned from the department to speed up site survey, land identification and demarcation for compensatory afforestation, public hearings and other formalities at their end.
The meeting reviewed the current status and progress of 32 key projects of the central and state governments, private industries and mines having forest-related issues. Projects of NHAI, Railways, OPTCL, GSI and Reliance Jio Infocom Limited, BSNL, SAIL, Kalyani Steels along with mining projects of Indian Rare Earth Limited, Tata, Bhusan, Dalmia, Rungta, Adani, Vedanta, Trustline Mining and Akharkata mines were take up.
The meeting was informed that substantial progress had been made towards implementation of OFC cable and towers commissioning projects of BSNL and Reliance Jio Infocom Limited. Similar progress had also been achieved for OPTCL transmission line, GSI exploration, Capital Region Ring Road (CRRR) and Cuttack-Kandarpur road project of NHAI.
“The government has also expedited implementation of different mining projects in the state and waiting for approval from the Centre for Kotameta limestone mines of Dalmia, Sijimali bauxite mines of Vedanta, Kedesala, Kendudihi North iron ore mines of Rungta, Gandhalpada iron ore mines of Tata and Dholtapahar iron ore mines of Kasvi,” said officials from the Directorate of Mines.