The Hindu : Where Vajpayee's statement came as a surprise

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Tuesday, Jul 01, 2003

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Where Vajpayee's statement came as a surprise

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 30. After the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's statement on the Centre having granted a `No Objection Certificate' to the Madhya Pradesh Government for conversion of 925 forest villages into revenue villages, the Ministry of Environment and Forests is tight-lipped about the issue. Apparently, the Ministry wants the controversy to die a "natural death".

Despite the furore raised over the Prime Minister's statement at Mandla on June 17, where he blamed the Madhya Pradesh Government for not converting forest land into revenue villages, there has been no written communication from the State Government or the PMO seeking any clarification. Sources admitted, though, that the Prime Minister, had, indeed, been wrongly briefed — if at all — on the matter, because there has been no fresh commitment from the Ministry to allow the conversion of forest villages into revenue villages. Whatever guidelines are there on conversion of land use or regularisation of encroachment have been in existence since 1990.

Ministry sources said that no one from the PMO had sought any information on the issue before the Prime Minister made the statement at the Mandla rally and that it did come as a surprise to them. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, later said that the Prime Minister had been misled. The Prime Minister had "unknowingly committed a mistake," Mr. Singh remarked.

As per the guidelines, the State Government needs to have expressed its willingness to regularise the encroached land before the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 came into force. Two more conditions are that the legal status of the land will remain unchanged and that compensatory afforestation on double the land of degraded forest and equivalent to non-forest land will have to be done before regularisation. The hitch in this is that the unchanged legal status of the land would deprive the villagers of getting benefits such as loans available to them if they own "pattas" or ownership papers.

In the case of tribals, the guidelines clearly say that there should be a committee comprising the tribal land owners, revenue and forest officials who would decide on the eligibility of the land since the tribals necessarily may not be aware of the laws. These guidelines issued in 1990 are repeated through official circulars now and then.

However, this applies to land identified for regularisation only after 1980 because the Supreme Court had put a blanket ban on regularisation of forest land or change in the land use after this cut-off date.

The Ministry has already filed an affidavit to vacate the interim order issued on November 23, 2001. In fact, the Supreme Court had even ordered the eviction of encroached forest land on May 3, 2002 but not much could be done because of disputed cases and lack of FIRs. As of now, 72,811 hectares of forest land is under encroachment in Madhya Pradesh.

And, unless the Supreme Court interim order is vacated, even the Ministry of Environment and Forests cannot issue orders for conversion of land use or regularisation of encroached forest land. Of the 925 villages recommended for conversion of land use, only 92 villages in Khargone, Dewas, Rajgarh, Guna and Sidhi districts have been given "conditional" approval for conversion by the Ministry.

This approval, too, will be effective only when the stay on the change of status is vacated.

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Where Vajpayee's statement came as a surprise