The Parliament has cleared the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2016 in May last in lok Sabha and in July last in Rajya Sabha and as per the provision of the new legislation, there will be establishment of Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority at the Centre. At the State level, for compensatory afforestation activities will be looked over by the Forest Department.
As per the new provision created under legislation, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund will be available under public accounts for each State and Union Territories with sharing of 90:10 between the State and the Center, respectively. It has made provision of administration of funds and utilisation of funds collected from the user agencies to purchase new land, undertake plantation, regeneration of forest eco system, wild life protection, relocation of people from protected wildlife area, protection of forest and forest related infrastructure development.
By this new legislation, an adhoc structure of this kind already in operation by the order of Supreme Court will be replaced with the new one in more systematic way. It has also expanded the list of related activities with focus on compensatory afforestation. Now, the States will have more funds available under the new arrangement and it will be mostly beneficial to the States such as Odisha where forests are cut continually for mining.
The Forest Conservation Act, 1980 provides that no forest land can be diverted for non-forest purpose without prior approval of the Government of India. The Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) can grant permission for diversion of forest land up to one hectare for community development work. The Forest Conservation Act, 1980 further says that non-forest land equal to the size of forest which is diverted for non-forest purpose must be afforested. The value of diverted forest is to be calculated and recovered from the user agency for diverting forest to non-forest use and in order to compensate the loss in the interim the Net Present Value (NPV) of the diverted forest is calculated for a period of 50 years. The NPV has to be decided by an expert committee by the Central Government. The NPV ranges from about Rs5 lakh to Rs10 lakh per hectare depending on the quality of forest and it has been suggested to increase the NPV about five times more in case of dense forest.
The way forest diversion has been taking place there is huge amount available with States for afforestation programmes. It is reported that nearly Rs42,000 crore lying idle and each year about Rs6,000 crore will be available for the States for afforestation activities including conservation, improvement and exposition of forest and wildlife resources. The fund will help to regenerate forest and improve the quality of degraded forest which has been a major concern in the contest of increasing drought, desertification and climate change impacts. It is expected that the new fund will have wider impact over people in forest areas, especially on tribal population in terms of generating employment and income related opportunities. The forest regeneration will contribute to arrest soil erosion, drought and desertification and improve the soil and water management of the area and facilitate agriculture.
India’s top five States with maximum forest cover include Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha. The State of Odisha also has advantage of mangrove forest along with other States having coastline. Odisha is rich in biodiversity having two national parks, 18 sanctuaries, one biosphere reserve, three tiger reserves and three elephant reserves, which are valuable natural gifts and need to be protected. The status of forest report by Forest Survey of India data shows the forest cover in the State accounts for 31.38 per cent of the total geographical area of the State.
The forest areas of Odisha are also largely inhabited by STs and other forest dwellers who have been dependent on forest resources for generations. After independence, there have been largescale activities, including mining, industry, dam, SEZ, communication infrastructure projects and urbanisation. These development activities have acquired huge forest land hitting the life and livelihood of forest dwellers which cause unemployment, poverty, displacement, loss of livelihood and distress migration. The deforestation also hits economic growth of the State as forest is one of the major sources of income. So through CAMPA fund the State Government should generate employment and strengthen livelihood of people living around forest areas. The increase in poverty and economic distress will encourage more deforestation and lead to other negative social and political consequences. It is observed that the Forest Department has been planting firewood trees for industrial consumption, but it has been suggested that plantation of native species should be given priority. There has been problem of non-availability of forest land for afforestation. If an area is contiguous to a forest or in the proximity of a reserve forest area or protected forest, it will be easier for the Forest Department to maintain it. But where it is not possible to find land, the fund can be used for regeneration of degraded forest. The Revenue Department in an office order says the revenue land recorded as forest on which the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 are applicable would be converted for the purpose of compensatory afforestation. It further says in view of scarcity of non-forest Government land, project proponents other than Government projects, requiring forest diversion should go for private purchase of land or acquire land through land acquisition model for the purpose of compensatory afforestation. It is important for the State Government to make available land for afforestation purpose while huge forest land will be diverted in the coming days for mining, industry and other infrastructural projects. It is suggested that the huge abundant mining land can be utilised for this purpose which will be mostly beneficial to the people in mining areas. The Government should also encourage indigenous species plantation in private land of people living in forest fringe villages to increase their income and to improve local environmental condition.
There are a number of plantation schemes implemented in the State such as bamboo plantation by the Odisha Bamboo Development Agency, industrial belt plantation, bald hill plantation in hills devoid of any vegetation, plantation under MGNREGS, Shree Jagannatha Van Prakalpa to cater to the timber demand of lord Jagannath in nine forest divisions and National Afforestation Programme involving about four thousand Van Surakshya Samitis. But the real impact of these schemes needs to be evaluated. In this context the huge fund available under CAMPA needs very special attention of the Government. In the new legislation, the Chief Minister will be the Chairperson of the governing body of State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority and mostly the senior forest officials will have to manage it. It is told that the Forest Department is most ineffective in spending the money and a Vigilance report in 2011 which appeared in media says that from 2000 to 2005 about 164 officials of the department were chargesheeted under the ground of corruption. The effective implementation of afforestation funds fully depends on the commitment of the forest officials. It has been always suggested that the involvement of forest dwellers and people in forest fringe villages should be ensured and there should be space for involvement of communities in planning, implementation and monitoring of the funds under CAMPA. The other resource agencies such as CSOs, research bodies and people’s organizations should be involved as stakeholders. The available resources must be utilized to maintain forest and ecosystem.