Dilution of forest act on GoM agenda

A Group of Ministers on Tuesday will discuss a proposal to dilute provisions of the Forest Rights Act to fasten clearance to coal and mining projects in forest areas. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Sep 20, 2011, 01:01:36 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A Group of Ministers (GoM) on Tuesday will discuss a proposal to dilute provisions of the Forest Rights Act to fasten clearance to coal and mining projects in forest areas.

A committee headed by B K Chaturvedi, member (planning commission), had suggested that requirement of 50% of the gram sabha members to constitute quorum for conducting the meeting should not apply if the first meeting had been postponed for want of quorum.

It would mean that project would be considered even if less than half of the village body members are present.

Ministries such as coal and power had termed the quorum condition to get consent of the gram sabha as a reason for delaying approval to project. As per environment ministry’s circular of 2009, consent of gram sabha is must for consideration of a proposal by ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee (FAC). The FAC approves projects related to diversion of forestland.

Chaturvedi committee’s recommendation had evoked strong reaction from home minister P Chidambaram who said that developers may adopt certain unacceptable practices to deprive locals from their due benefits. Road highways minister C P Joshi also spoke against dilution of FRA saying interests of tribals should be protected.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan suggested that views of the tribal affairs minister Kishore Chandra Deo should be taken before taking the call on dilution of FRA provisions.

Union finance minister Pranab Mukerjee had invited Deo for the Tuesday’s meeting.

"I will take a view on the issue at the GoM,” the tribal affairs minister told HT. But, government officials said agreeing to dilution of the FRA provisions would be difficult as it will open a pandora’s box for similar demands from other ministries. “The law will loose its basic aim to protect rights of the forest dwellers," an official said.

The GoM, which now has new members is expected to take key decisions on environment clearance process.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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