Grey areas in forest encroachment record

The Hindu

Saturday, Aug 14, 2004

By Lalit Shastri

BHOPAL, AUG. 13. Even as the problem of encroachment continues to

threaten the forests in Madhya Pradesh, the State Government claims

that the mandatory requirement of compensatory afforestation has

been fulfilled and the forest encroachments across the State prior to

1980 can be regularised immediately after receiving appropriate

directions from the Supreme Court.

The Government claim vis-à-vis afforestation notwithstanding, State

Forest Department sources point out that the funds that were

earmarked for afforestation were diverted to village level forest

committees and only a thorough probe would establish whether the

State Government's claims were justified.

The Union Government had cleared the State Government's proposals

for regularizing forest encroachments prior to 1980. It had also issued

an order on February 4, 2004, approving the settlement of traditional

rights of the forest dwellers over forest land and produce. This order

was subject to interpretation but the State Government had even

initiated steps to legalise all encroachments till December 1993.

Despite the State Government's zeal to go ahead in this direction, the

entire process of regularizing encroachments has now come to a

grinding halt in the State due to the stay recently ordered by the

Supreme Court. This order even covers the period prior to 1980.

The official Forest Department records show that over 150,000

hectares of forests have come under encroachment. Forest

Department insiders point out that the actual forest area under

encroachment in Madhya Pradesh is many times more than the

recorded encroachment since people tend to bring more and more land

under encroachment year after year. On September 8, 2001, when the Union Government had raised

Several queries regarding the State Government's proposals to settle

the encroachers on thousands of hectares of forest land, the then

Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, had talked of diluting the Forest

Conservation Act and announced that 150,000 hectares of land was

being given to the landless forest dwellers in the State. This

announcement was made at a public rally of tribals at Shahdol in the

presence of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, who had taken a

firm stand against diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes. She

had underlined this by stating that concerns for environment, forests

and wildlife continue to recede in many States as vast amount of

forest land are still being diverted for non-forest use.

Later in June 2003, the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had

asserted at a public rally in the predominantly tribal district of Mandla

in the State that the Centre had issued the "No Objection Certificate''

for converting forest villages into revenue villages and it was for the

State Government to issue the necessary notification.

In 1991, the State Government had decided to settle people who had

encroached upon the forest area till October 24, 1980. The State

Government had invited applications from the encroachers to settle

their claims several times between 1991 and 1994 and the last date

fixed for this purpose was July 31, 1994. The State Government had

evolved a liberal eligibility criteria for this purpose and only those

encroachers, who had held physical possession of the forest area on

October 24, 1980, were declared eligible for encroachment settlement

although in March 1984, the Union Agriculture Ministry had suggested

to the States and Union Territories that they could confer inalienable

rights on forest villages only if they were in occupation of land for

more than 20 years. Between August 1995 and October 1997, there

were 27 proposals to settle 152,043 persons in 182,889.704 hectares

that were submitted to MOEF, under Section-2 of the Forest

Conservation Act, 1980. After the division of the State and formation

of Chhattisgarh on November 1, 2000, the State Forest department

records were showing that 90477.856 hectares of forest land was

under possession of 70083 persons (55023 hectares with the STs,

4146 hectares with the SCs and 10914 hectares with those belonging

to the general category). However, this is as far as the Government

records were concerned and only reflected the magnitude of the

encroachment problem.