Guwahati: After handing over 44 hectares of forest land at Damcherra Inner Line Reserve Forest in Hailakandi district without a mandatory clearance from the Central Government, Assam’s PCCF & HoFF MK Yadava has handed over 15 hectares of forest land of the proposed Barak-Bhuban Wildlife Sanctuary to the PWD (Roads) for construction of a road to the top of Bhuban Hill, without the mandatory Forest Conservation Act clearance.
Bhuban Hill, is a 17th-century Shiva shrine situated at an altitude of 3,000 feet in Cachar district near the Assam-Manipur border.
It is learnt that MK Yadava has handed over the forest land to PWD quoting the directions of the Assam Chief Minister for the construction of an approach road to the top of the Bhuban Hill.
On November 29, 2022, the Chief Minister directed for the diversion of the area under the Forest Conservation Act and afforestation in an equivalent area elsewhere.
But MK Yadava has issued directions stating that the road, as well as the right of way (ROW) of the road, shall be under the control of the PWD if the forest area is diverted under the Forest Conservation Act, and therefore the procedures under the Central Act should not be followed.
On the same day, PCCF MK Yadava, CCF Southern Assam Circle, P Sivakumar, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Cachar Division Tejas Mariswamy visited the site and took stock of the situation.
Just after the visit, the PCCF directed that the road construction should be taken up departmentally through the PWD from the resources available with the PWD, which shows that it is a PWD road.
In his Memo No HoFF/Camp/SLC/2022 dated 29th November, 2l22, Yadava says, “The forest department will have full control of the road as it will be a departmental road with the right of PWD to maintain it at regular intervals. The DFO, Cachar Division, Silchar is hereby directed to take up the matter with local PWD authorities and the deputy commissioner, Cachar for early action in the regard as decided above.”
“Since the forest department does not have adequate fund or the expertise to construct such a road with a sharp gradient, the department may take assistance from the PWD to construct the road, including funding from the available resources of the PWD; while the PWD would not be having any rights on the land other than maintenance and upkeep of the road.”
It is alleged that while passing these orders, Yadava fraudulently covered up the fact that the legal status of the Forest Land does not change after the diversion.Instead he stated that the F(C) Act diversion will turn the forest land into non-forest land, which is erroneous. The road to the top of the Bhuban Hillamounted to diversion of forest land for a non-forest purpose.
Yadava recorded in the minutes that there were two options, and he could choose the option where no F(C) Act clearance was required. But in reality, rules do not provide for such an option, and the option chosen was nothing but a violation of the Forest Conservation Act. In this case, a PWD road is misleadingly being called a forest road to evade the F(C) Act procedure.
When the F(C) Act clearance is not obtained, compensatory afforestation (CA) land is not allocated, and the CA and the net present value (NPV) payments to the Forest Department are not done, which is a violation of the Supreme Court orders.
In effect, Yadava interpreted the F(C) Act in such a way, that the interpretation itself goes against the very letter and spirit of the F(C) Act, 1980.