*Strengthening of Forest Deptt wings remains distant dream
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 14: Though thousands of square kilometer forest area across Jammu and Kashmir continues to remain under encroachment and fresh attempts are still being made by the encroachers, the Revenue and Forest Departments have yet not come forward to reconcile the land records, which otherwise is a crucial exercise aimed at retrieving the encroached forest land and protect the green cover from further onslaught of grabbers.
Keeping in view alarming level of encroachments on forest land in the length and breadth of the State, the then Government in the year 2011 came out with a Forest Policy. It was announced at that time that this document would go a long way in maintaining a healthy forest resource and address the concern of its depletion and degradation.
In the policy, required thrust was laid on the protection of forest land by stating that encroachment of forest lands is a serious issue and the problem is becoming more serious with every passing day. Several measures were also enunciated in the document to be implemented by the Forest Department in coordination with Revenue Department.
However, this policy met the fate of several other strategies chalked out from time to time to protect the forests from the encroachers as key aspects relating to protection of forest land have largely remained confined to the official files, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
In the Forest Policy, it was explicitly stated that land records of Revenue Department will be reconciled with demarcation record of Forest Department in a time bound manner starting with highly vulnerable areas.
“Though reconciliation exercise was initiated in few areas particularly in winter capital but the same failed to yield any positive results as either the exercise was stopped abruptly or not conducted perfectly”, sources informed, adding “in major parts of the State the reconciliation of records has yet not been initiated despite lapse of over five years since the announcement of the Forest Policy”.
“It is due to non-reconciliation of land records that Forest Department is finding it difficult to remove the encroachers from the forest land”, sources said, adding “whenever the Forest Department team issues notice to the encroacher on the basis of its demarcation record, the encroacher produces the record of Revenue Department substantiating claim over the land in question. This results into litigations and subsequent inordinate delay in retrieval of forest land”.
During the past several years, the successive Governments talked much about retrieving encroached forest land and chalked out different strategies in this regard but there was no focus on ensuring that officers of the Forest and Revenue Departments sit together and reconcile the record to settle the dispute once for all.
“Such an exercise will not only help the Forest Department but also help the Revenue Department in having clear and unambiguous record”, sources said.
Similar is the fate of modernization of forest demarcation system, which was also flagged as priority issue in the Forest Policy of 2011, sources said, adding “no doubt, exercise in this regard has been initiated in certain areas of Jammu and Kashmir but the same is going on at a snail’s pace with no tangible result on ground”.
Disclosing that forests of J&K are spread over 2900 patches, sources said, “the department is taking up 100 patches in a year keeping in view limited number of demarcation divisions and shortage of manpower with them”, adding “this indicates that it will take 29 years to the department to demarcate all the forests patches”.
Had there been any seriousness towards demarcation of forests, the successive Governments would have created more demarcation divisions with adequate manpower and other paraphernalia, sources said.
The policy had also laid thrust on resettlement of inhabitants of Chaks within and completely surrounded by forests on fringe forest or outside forest with adequate compensation but this aspect has also failed to invite the required attention till date.
“Administrative and legal measures to reclaim encroached forest land and action plan for reclamation and rehabilitation of encroached forest land have also remained confined to the official files with those who remained at the helm of affairs in the Forest Department since 2011 not paying any serious attention towards these aspects”, sources added.
In the policy enough thrust was also laid on effective protection and management of forests and wildlife by creating infrastructure, manpower and effectively strengthening different wings of the Forest Department but despite lapse of over five years the situation remained as it was in 2011, sources regretted.
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