Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 4: Minister of State for Forest and Ecology, Mian Altaf today informed the House that the spirit of the J&K Forest (Conservation) Act is to facilitate the judicious diversion of forest land for non-forestry use (infrastructure development) ensuring that the clearance is accorded considering the ecological aspects with the least involvement of forest land/ trees and at the same time to compensate for the ecological damage so caused due to change in land use.
Replying the Calling Attention Notice by Harshdev Singh, the Minister said that there is no large scale pendency of forest clearance cases in the State. As soon as the indents are received from the Indenting Agencies in the PCCF’s office, the processing of the cases under the J&K Forest ( Conservation) Act, 1997, is set in motion for expeditious sanction by the competent authority. However, the process takes some time in collecting desired information, data, alignment maps etc by the User Agency.
The Minister said that sometimes the alignment is given by the User Agency, without working out all possible alternatives of involvement of minimum forest land and minimum number of trees. In that case he said such cases involving large number of trees are sometimes returned by the authorities at various levels for realignment to ensure minimum damage to the ecology of the area. He said that such approach with respect to conservation of environment is sometimes necessary to ensure that the development of the area and people living there while sanctioning forest clearance cases also takes care of their environmental, ecological and water security. ” It may be noted, here that many perennial springs/ streams in the State, over the time with loss of forests, have now no water in dry seasons besides receding of glacial snow in the higher regions”, the Minister maintained.
The Minister said that 348 road projects have been cleared in the State since 2006 and 125 are pending. He said 28 road projects have been cleared in Ramnagar Forest Division, while as 6 are pending till date.
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