CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has stayed diversion of forest land in Dhinkia area of Jagatsinghpur district where JSW Utkal Steel Limited intends to set up an integrated steel plant along with a thermal power plant, a cement plant and a captive jetty.
The division bench of Justice Arindam Sinha and Justice SK Mishra directed the state government to move the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests for the purpose of alienation of the forest land, on compliance with the requirements.
“Till compliance of the requirements, including recognition of traditional forest dwellers, is complete as filed in the lease cases (initiated by Ersama tehsildar), they will remain stayed,” the bench said in its March 24 order, while disposing of a petition filed by Manas Bardhan and 23 others.
The petitioners claimed to be traditional forest dwellers at the project site also known as Dhinkia Chaaridesh, comprising eight villages spread over three-gram panchayats - Dhinkia, Nuagaon, Gadkujang and the adjacent forest land.
Land requirement for the proposed project site is 1,206 hectares, of which 136.47 hectares is non-forest land and 1069.53-hectare forest land. Arguing on the petitioner’s behalf, advocate Khirod Kumar Rout submitted that the process of diversion of forest land has been initiated by the administration without taking any steps for recognition of forest dwellers of the area in violation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
Rout further alleged that the government has been illegally occupying agricultural forest land, setting the forest on fire, and demolishing the betel vines of the petitioners. As per the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, no member of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribe or other traditional forest dwellers shall be evicted or removed from forest land under its occupation till the recognition and verification procedure is complete.
The petitioners as well as other villagers of the project-affected site qualify as Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) and are eligible for vesting of rights. They qualify as OTFDs as they had primarily resided in the forest land for 75 years prior to December 13, 2005 and depend on the forest land for bonafide livelihood needs, Rout contended.