In its audit report on Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), tabled in Parliament on Friday, the CAG rapped the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and various State Forest Departments by bringing out serious shortcomings in regulatory issues related to diversion of forest land, abject failure to promote compensatory afforestation, unauthorised diversion of forest land in the case of mining and the attendant violation of the environmental regime.
The apex auditor observed instances in which orders of the Supreme Court were flouted by Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board in the case of diversion of forest land in the Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Wildlife Sanctuary without permission from National Board of Wildlife and the Supreme Court. In five other cases, unauthorised renewal of mining leases in Rajasthan and Odisha were noticed, where the approval of Central Government was not obtained by the State Governments as had been directed by the Supreme Court.
The report pointed to numerous instances of unauthorised renewal of leases, illegal mining, continuance of mining leases despite adverse comments in the monitoring reports, projects operating without environment clearances, unauthorised change of status of forest land and arbitrariness in decisions of forestry clearances were observed.
Prominent amongst them include the case of UP Government that changed the status of Reserve Forest land measuring 1,083.23 hectares in Sonbhadra district as revenue land in August 2007 without prior approval of Environment Ministry in contravention of Forest Conservation Act, 1980. The land was handed over to M/s JP Associates ltd for non-forest use like establishment of cement plant, mining and other allied activities.
It also raised fingers on the mechanism for investment of surplus funds by the Ad-hoc CAMPA was arbitrary and lacked in fairness and transparency. There were instances of deposits amounting to Rs 1,998.47 crore placed in banks that did not even bid. In the case of fixed deposits, there was loss of interest of Rs 8.70 crore, Rs 7.80 crore and Rs 4.45 crore on account of delay in investment of funds, retaining the funds in interest free current accounts and delay in crediting the maturity amount into bank accounts respectively. There was also short credit of Rs 1.08 crore on maturity of fixed deposits.