Nagpur | Jan 03, 2017: The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) is delaying putting the agenda of forest land diversion projects in public domain ostensibly to quell opposition from various quarters.
On December 26, the FAC considered diversion of 4,377 hectare forest land, a majority of it for mining projects. However, the meeting's agenda was shared on December 20.
FAC considered the projects which included the diversion of 3,952 hectare forest land for mining alone in Maharashtra (153ha), Chhattisgarh (1,294ha), Odisha (2,355ha), and Rajasthan (149ha), while the remaining area was for wind power and other projects. The minutes of the meeting is not released yet.
Pushp Jain, director of EIA Resource and Response Centre (ERC), alleged there are serious delays in sharing FAC agenda.
"The meeting was on December 26, but the agenda was shared only 6 days before that. This is ostensibly being done to ensure there is no opposition," Jain said.
Delhi-based ERC keeps watch on Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) processes and ensures that impact of developmental activities on India's environment and communities is properly accessed and accounted for.
Jain said of the total 4,377 hectares, maximum diversion is proposed for mining amounting to 90% (3,952ha). Odisha leads among states with maximum diversion proposed followed by Chhattisgarh.
Out of the 27 projects, 20 have been considered for review. The remaining seven projects are already granted stage I & II clearance and appeared for issues to be sorted out.
Jain says there were several problems with this agenda. There were 25 proposals but documents links were given for 4 proposals only. The title of proposals were incomplete and there was no mention whether it is a renewal of lease or stage I or II clearance already granted or a new proposal.
ERC said the agenda do have links to documents but titles of the proposals on the face of it are not clear. There were 25 proposals but two more were added on time, which means 27 proposals were discussed in one day.
Earlier too the ministry had announced FAC meeting for December 12 without the agenda being made available. The ERC strongly protested against it and pointed out to MoEFCC that ERC has not carried out rapid review of some proposals on agenda and hence is unable present issues and suggestions for consideration.
"This seems to be mischievous. Finally, due to representation by ERC and probably pressure from some independent members, better sense prevailed and MoEFCC postponed the meeting to December 26," says Jain.
Environmentalists, who did not want to be quoted, said this shows how the BJP government at the Centre is in a tearing hurry to clear detrimental projects. Of the late it is frequently happening that FAC agenda is not being put up in public domain.
ERC representatives said for earlier meeting on November 9-10, 2016, the agenda was put in public domain on November 5. Secondly, new proposals were quietly added to the agenda subsequently on November 7.
Conservationists said members of FAC should protest this attitude of the MoEFCC on ethical and moral grounds and demand action against officials responsible for the mess.
(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)