SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Forest Department has said there is no delay on its part in processing proposals for diversion of forest land for developmental and infrastructure projects, attributing delays in cases where they occur primarily to incomplete proposals or failure by user agencies to upload the required documents on the PARIVESH portal.
The department made the statement in response to Un-Starred Question D.No. 1/6/114 tabled by Altaf Ahmad Wani, MLA, regarding implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and issues concerning forest land diversion and permissions.
According to the reply, project proponents and user agencies are required to submit the prescribed documents in accordance with the checklist mandated on the PARIVESH portal. The department said cases may face delays when proposals are incomplete or the requisite documents have not been uploaded.
The Forest Department rejected the suggestion that technical or performance-related problems with the PARIVESH portal were causing inconvenience in the processing of applications.
It said PARIVESH is a centrally hosted and managed platform developed and maintained by the National Informatics Centre under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, and that no such “dismal performance” of the portal had been noticed or reported.
The department also clarified that the Kashmir Forest Notice has no connection with implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
It said the Kashmir Forest Notice was notified in 1912 with the objective of providing certain concessions relating to forest produce to people in the Kashmir province.
On implementation of the Forest Rights Act in J&K, the government said district-wise details of claims received, approved, rejected and pending have been provided in Annexure A to the Assembly reply. The district-wise figures, however, were not included in the material supplied with the reply.
The Forest Rights Act, 2006 provides a statutory framework concerning forest rights of eligible forest-dwelling communities. The government’s response addressed the status of claims separately from the issue of forest land diversion for developmental projects.
The reply was signed by the Minister in charge of the Forest, Ecology and Environment Department and the Under Secretary to the Government, Forest, Ecology and Environment Department.
