Staff Reporter
Guwahati: Even as the eviction drives against encroachers of forest and other government lands continued in the state, it has come to the fore that Assam has the second-highest area of forest land under encroachment amongst all states in the country.
This fact came to light today during a reply by Minister of State (MoS) in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Kirti Vardhan Singh, to a question in the Rajya Sabha. The question regarding the quantum of forest area under encroachment was posed by RS MP Pramod Tiwari.
According to the statistics presented in the RS by MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh, a total area of 362082.62 hectares of forest land is under encroachment in Assam, as of March 31, 2024. This is the second-highest area of forest lands encroached upon in the country, after Madhya Pradesh, which tops the list with an area of 546089.45 hectares under encroachment. Karnataka has the third-highest forest area of 86308.44 hectares under encroachment.
As for the other states in the Northeast with encroached forest land, Arunachal Pradesh has 53499.96 hectares, followed by Mizoram with 24722.96 hectares, Tripura with 4242.37 hectares, Manipur with 3270.20 hectares, and Sikkim with 469.16 hectares of forest land encroached upon.
In his reply on the floor of the RS, the MoS said, "The protection and management of forests and wildlife areas is primarily the responsibility of the concerned State Government/UT Administration. The State/Union Territory authorities are empowered to take action against encroachment of forest areas under the Indian Forest Act 1927, the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972, and the State Forest Acts/Rules as applicable."
"This Ministry has issued advisories to State Governments/UT Administrations to remove encroachments on forest lands as per the provisions of the law and to ensure that further encroachments do not occur. Further, in order to prevent encroachments, various measures are taken by the State Forest Departments, which include survey and demarcation of forest areas, fixing of pillars along forest boundaries and regular patrolling by field staff. The State Forest Departments also use a range of modern technologies such as Geographical Information Systems, Remote sensing and Global Positioning Systems to check encroachments in the forest areas. The Joint Forest Management committees have also been established at village levels, involving local communities for the protection, conservation and management of forests," MoS Singh added.
Recently, the Assam government conducted a massive eviction drive on encroached Reserve Forest land at Uriamghat in the Golaghat district. The lands freed from encroachment will now be covered under a plantation drive, which is scheduled to start soon.
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