The Uttar Pradesh government has transferred nearly 40,969.35 hectare of forest land for non-forest purposes even after the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) in the state was disbanded by the national CAMPA advisory council in 2012 to engage themselves from such activities.
It was learnt that the UP chapter of CAMPA was registered in August 2010 as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. But in the fourth meeting of the national CAMPA advisory council, it was decided in January 2012 that state CAMPA should not work as ‘Societies’ registered under the ‘Act’.
It was also further decided that wherever states have registered their respective CAMPA as ‘Societies’, it should be abolished immediately. However, in the case of UP it was not done and over the years an obscene amount of land was transferred for non-forest purposes for government as well as for private purposes.
The gross irregularities were pointed out in the recent CAG audit report where they have raised serious questions over the functioning of CAMPA. As per rule in some cases, it is mandatory for CAMPA to take almost equal amount of land, which (forest land) they give to the receiver.
In some cases equivalent land was not required to be received such as firing range (222.20 hectare), transmission line up to 220 KV (328.694 hectare), optical fibre cable (15.519 hectare), central government departments (310.2563 hectare) etc.
However, it was observed by the CAG that non-forest land measuring 8,790.18 hectare worth Rs 615.31 crore was not received from the user agencies in respect of the forest land diverted for non-forest purposes. Collectively the total volume of land, which is yet to be received from the users, are nearly 14,000 hectare.
The CAG report further reads, ‘Forest land measuring 438.936 hectare was used for non-forest purposes by user agencies without approval of the central government.’
On granting ‘mining’ on a lease basis by violating rules, CAG sources said, ‘During the audit of the forest division in Renukoot, we have found that approval for mining lease to Northern Coalfields Limited, Dughi Chua and Kharia was granted by the central government for the period of 40 years between 1991 to 2031. The state government claimed that they have an approval letter from the central government. But this reply is not acceptable as grant of approval for mining lease in excess of 30 years was against mining guidelines.’
Further probe revealed that in some cases forest lands were used by the state irrigation department without getting any approval from the central government.
‘They have violated the law by using nearly 400 hectare of land for irrigation and construction of Shahjad Dam without having any approval. Surprisingly, such malpractice was going on for several years but no one has raised any objection,’ a senior CAG official said.
On the context of whether forest lands were given to the private builders in UP or not, he said, ‘The audit is going on and so far we have not come across any concrete lead in this regard. But we suspect that there might have been some dealing in this regards as well.