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In an alleged “wrongful circumvention” of the provisions of Forest Conservation Act and brazen suppression of vital information, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the biggest custodian of the forests of the country has been found to “facilitate” huge areas of forest land in Madhya Pradesh for mining and non-forestry purposes.
According to the documents accessed by The Pioneer, AK Rana, Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) heading the regional office of the MoEF has cleared a large number of proposals during the period of 2010-11. These include cases other than mining including — roads, gas projects etc,
whose approvals had been decided by the Bhopal office of MoEF itself.
The matter of circumvention of the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act was reported in writing by Deputy Conservator of Forests Sujoy Banerjee. The whistle blower forest officer had written letters to former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, forest secretary T Chatterjee and director general of forests PJ Dilip Kumar way back in May, 2011. But no preliminary inquiry has been conducted into the matter even after four months of the complaint. In a notional act recently, Rana has been asked to hand over charge to CCF of regional office in Bhubaneshwar on Wednesday last. But he is yet to do so till the filing of this report.
Amongst some of the major proposals cleared by him include a mining proposal for 20.650 of forest land for mining of laterite, iron and blue dust at Katni, in the State. The complaint to MoEF pointed out that vital information ie — as justification for locating the mine in the proposed forest area when the mineral was available in non-forest area, details of other mining leases on forest and non-forest land in the district and status of reclamation was lacking in the file.
There was no information of the site inspection by the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Katni, which is mandatory as per the Forest Conservation Act.
The missing information was conveniently overlooked before sending the files for clearance before the State Advisory Group (SAG) for assessment of clearance of projects in the State, as the chairman also happened to be Rana himself.
As per the documents, yet another proposal of mining of pyrophyllite in Chhattarpur district, where the location of the proposal was within the forest area and the mineral was available outside the forest area, Rana once again cleared the file for discussion in the State Advisory Group. He has, however, justified his act stating that, “The location of the project is inside the forest and adjacent to an existing road which may facilitate in transporting the material without necessitating the construction of fresh road in the area.”
In other proposals on mining, Rana in his note of forwarding the proposal to the Ministry has justified his action by stating that “It is clear that there are no iron ore mines operational/proposed in the area other than the instant proposal. As such, it may not lead to fragmentation of new forest areas and proposal can be considered favourably in the light of this….”
However, the experts argued that if an undisturbed forest area is opened for first time mining, then other proposal for mining in the forest area are bound to follow and cannot be refused, which will lead to the fragmentation and consequent death of the entire forest block. Apart from impacting the environment and forest, the movement and operation of heavy machinery would also have disastrous effect on wildlife, they said.
Speaking to The Pioneer, Rana however, assured that nothing illegal or unreasonable has been done. MoEF authorities could not be contacted for their comments despite repeated attempts.
According to the documents accessed by The Pioneer, AK Rana, Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) heading the regional office of the MoEF has cleared a large number of proposals during the period of 2010-11. These include cases other than mining including — roads, gas projects etc,
whose approvals had been decided by the Bhopal office of MoEF itself.
The matter of circumvention of the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act was reported in writing by Deputy Conservator of Forests Sujoy Banerjee. The whistle blower forest officer had written letters to former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, forest secretary T Chatterjee and director general of forests PJ Dilip Kumar way back in May, 2011. But no preliminary inquiry has been conducted into the matter even after four months of the complaint. In a notional act recently, Rana has been asked to hand over charge to CCF of regional office in Bhubaneshwar on Wednesday last. But he is yet to do so till the filing of this report.
Amongst some of the major proposals cleared by him include a mining proposal for 20.650 of forest land for mining of laterite, iron and blue dust at Katni, in the State. The complaint to MoEF pointed out that vital information ie — as justification for locating the mine in the proposed forest area when the mineral was available in non-forest area, details of other mining leases on forest and non-forest land in the district and status of reclamation was lacking in the file.
There was no information of the site inspection by the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Katni, which is mandatory as per the Forest Conservation Act.
The missing information was conveniently overlooked before sending the files for clearance before the State Advisory Group (SAG) for assessment of clearance of projects in the State, as the chairman also happened to be Rana himself.
As per the documents, yet another proposal of mining of pyrophyllite in Chhattarpur district, where the location of the proposal was within the forest area and the mineral was available outside the forest area, Rana once again cleared the file for discussion in the State Advisory Group. He has, however, justified his act stating that, “The location of the project is inside the forest and adjacent to an existing road which may facilitate in transporting the material without necessitating the construction of fresh road in the area.”
In other proposals on mining, Rana in his note of forwarding the proposal to the Ministry has justified his action by stating that “It is clear that there are no iron ore mines operational/proposed in the area other than the instant proposal. As such, it may not lead to fragmentation of new forest areas and proposal can be considered favourably in the light of this….”
However, the experts argued that if an undisturbed forest area is opened for first time mining, then other proposal for mining in the forest area are bound to follow and cannot be refused, which will lead to the fragmentation and consequent death of the entire forest block. Apart from impacting the environment and forest, the movement and operation of heavy machinery would also have disastrous effect on wildlife, they said.
Speaking to The Pioneer, Rana however, assured that nothing illegal or unreasonable has been done. MoEF authorities could not be contacted for their comments despite repeated attempts.
