Boasting of maintaining a forest cover well over the national average, the Odisha Government has made a case for introduction of a ‘Green Dividend’. As per the latest report of the Forest Survey of India, Odisha has a green cover of 31 per cent of its gross geographical area. This is substantially higher than the all-India figure of 21 per cent. “The Central Government should financially reward the State in shape of a Green Dividend,” said the State Government has proposed to the Centre. Such a provision should be made to incentivise the States for maintaining their forests, he argued.
Besides, with a view to doing away with the complicacies arising out of Grama Sabhas vis-à-vis clearances required for forest diversion proposals, the State Government has impressed upon the Centre that with regard to the Forest Rights Act (FRA) the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) should take into cognisance the certification of District Magistrates in case Grama Sabhas are not possible in spite of notifications.
The State Government has stated that it is taking utmost care to process the forest diversion proposals for development projects within the statutory time limit. But sometimes the processing of the Forest Diversion proposals gets delayed because of delay in obtaining consent of Gram Sabha under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and the insistence of MoEF for status of the Record of Rights of non-forest land of the project prior to October 25, 1980.
As far as the status of Record of Rights as on October 25, 1980 is concerned, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had written a letter to the Prime Minister in this regard on July 2 last year underlining the need to reexamine the circular issued by the MoEF on May 7, 2014.
This would enable the State Government to process the Forest Diversion proposals on the basis of the ‘Hal Settlement’ records. The Union Government is yet to give its opinion in the proposal of the Chief Minister, said an official, adding that as observed in some cases, even after the Stage-II Forest Clearance, the local villagers are resisting tree cutting and final handing over of the forest land to the project proponents.
Taking this into account, the State Government has urged the project proponents to implement the Resettlement & Rehabilitation (R&R) Plan, CSR activities and payment of compensation in the right earnest to ensure the support and goodwill of local communities.