Maha sets aside over 40K ha land bank for afforestation to speed up infra projects

The bank details the available land in each district where trees can be planted to offset deforestation caused by infrastructure projects

MUMBAI: Infrastructure projects – a big priority for Maharashtra – often get stalled or delayed when suitable land parcels are not easily found for afforestation, against forest land parcels needed for the projects. To resolve the issue, and stem rising project costs – which are inevitable due to delays -- the state government has prepared a land bank.

Maha sets aside over 40K ha land bank for afforestation to speed up infra projects

The bank details the available land in each district where trees can be planted to offset deforestation caused by infrastructure projects. It has 7,500 hectares of non-forest land and 33,056 hectares of degraded forest land (parcels that have lost significant bio-diversity and green cover), which the government feels will be sufficient for the next 10 years to implement various infra projects.

The land bank system was inaugurated on Wednesday by revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule.

Every year, the state requires around 2000 to 3000 hectares of degraded forest land and 1000 to 2000 hectares of non-forest land for compensatory afforestation against giving up the forest land for projects such as national highways, state highways, coastal road, tunnels, bullet train, dedicated freight corridor, expansion of railway tracks, ports etc, said officials from the forest department. In the absence of a composite data, they said, the search for available spaces was time-consuming.

For alternate afforestation state government has prepared land bank of 7546 hectares of non-forest land across six revenue divisions, which include 2689 hectares in Marathwada, 2525 hectares in Nashik, 1153 hectares in Amaravati, 640 hectares in Pune, 408 hectares in Konkan and 131 hectares in Nagpur.

On the other hand, for degraded forest land, the government has prepared land bank of 33,056 hectares across state. It includes 8109 hectares in Nagpur division, 5724 hectares in Amaravati, 4179 hectares in Marathwada, 9002 hectares in Nashik, 5330 hectares in Pune and 712 hectares in Konkan.

The land bank will help speed up the process of implementing projects, said Bawankule. “The system has all details of land available across state, including districts and villages. Once a portion of land is allocated for afforestation, the system will update the data. This will save time,” he said.