Parliament Passes Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023

After opposition walked out over their demands for discussion on Manipur Violence, the Rajya Sabha passed the contentious Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 today. It aims to amend certain provisions under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, to extend and exempt specific types of land from the Act’s applicability. The Bill was approved by Lok Sabha last week with voice vote.

In the Statement of Object and Reasons Of Bill, it states that it is necessary to broaden the horizon of the Act in order to achieve the objective of the country to increase the forest cover for creation of carbon sink of additional 2.5 to 3.0 billion tons of CO equivalent by 2030.

It further states that before the 1996 Supreme Court judgement in T.N. Godavarman vs. Union of India and others, the Forest (Conservation) Act only applied to notified forest lands, not revenue forest areas and non-forestry use in the revenue forest areas was allowed through government’s permissions.

After the judgment, the Act was applied to recorded forest areas, including those already used for non-forestry purposes. This caused confusion about the Act’s applicability to plantations on private and government non-forest lands. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the Act’s applicability to different types of lands, it stated.

The Bill amends the short title of the Act to be called the “Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980” and clarifies the scope of applicability of the Act upon various lands.

It extends the applicability of the Act to certain types of land. These include land notified as a forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or in government records after the 1980 Act came into effect.

Certain categories of lands are exempted from the purview of the Act which includes the following:

• Such forest land situated alongside a rail line or a public road maintained by the Government, which provides access to a habitation, or to a rail, and roadside amenity up to a maximum size of 0.10 hectare.
• The forest land which is situated within a distance of one hundred kilometers along international borders or Line of Control or Line of Actual Control, as the case may be, proposed to be used for construction of strategic linear project of national importance and concerning national security.
• Land up to ten hectares, proposed to be used for construction of security related infrastructure.
• Land as is proposed to be used for construction of defence related projects or a camp for paramilitary forces or public utility projects, as may be specified by the Central Government, the extent of which does not exceed five hectares in a Left Wing Extremism affected area as may be notified by the Central Government.
• Tree plantation or reafforestation raised on lands that are not declared or notified as a forest in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or under any other law for the time being in force or has been recorded in Government record as forest, as on or after the 25th October, 1980.

Key Challenges

Concerns are raised that the exemption of land from the purview of the Act near border areas for national security projects may adversely impact the forest cover and wildlife in the border area regions like Jammu & Kashmir and north-eastern states.

The Bill removes the mandatory central government approval for diversion of forests in certain cases. This means that decisions regarding the diversion of forest land would be taken by state governments and the UT administration only. According to PRS, giving a blanket exemption for all security related projects may not be appropriate given the impact it may have on forest cover and biodiversity.

Zoos are also exempted from taking prior approval under the Act, however the Apex Court in In re T.N Godaverman v. UOI disapproved of the building of zoos inside forest areas.

The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha in March, 2023 and thereafter it was referred to a 31 member Joint Parliamentary Committee that has recently submitted its report. The Committee did not propose any changes to the Bill. However, six MPs from opposition have filed the dissent note. The objections were raised by them on exemption of forest land at border areas from the purview of the Act, that might turn detrimental to Biodiversity and forest coverage of border areas especially at Himalayan region. Concerns were also raised that it may lead to exploitation of forest land by using them for non-forest purposes.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh raised an objection on sending the Bill to the select committee of Parliament. He said that the Bill should ideally be sent to the parliamentary standing committee on science, technology, environment and forest which is chaired by Ramesh.

“Forest-like areas”-ie., tracts of land that have the characteristics of forests, but have not been notified under the law or recorded as ‘Forest’ in any government records-would be exempted under the amendment,” wrote MP Jairam Ramesh after passing of the Bill today.

Also, forest lands diverted by the State before 1996 are completely exempted under the proposed amendment. Such blanket exemptions will threaten all such forests by diluting the category of ‘forest lands’ which were brought under the mandate of approval in the landmark 1996 T.N. Godavarman judgment of the Supreme Court, he added.

Another concern raised by the opposition parties is that it will enable private developers to cut down forests without getting the consent of forest-dwellers, which will consequently violate the provisions of the Forest Rights Act.

On changing the short title of the Act as “Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980,”objections were raised that it ignores the non-Hindi speaking population of the country.

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