Describing it as a “blatant breach of assurances by the government,” former Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has objected to the rules governing the distribution of the ₹66,000 crore fund devised to compensate for the loss of forests from industrial development.
The Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Act, 2016, and its Rules, specify the kind of projects that would be eligible under the CAF, the composition of the national and State authorities, and how decisions regarding the utilisation of these funds ought to be taken.
Reduced authority
In a letter to Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan this month, Mr. Ramesh alleged that the CAF Rules “undermined” several aspects of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA). In the current form, they significantly reduced the authority of gram sabhas in having a say in their local compensatory afforestation projects and reduced them to the role of “consultants”. Much power instead was vested with the State-level forest bureaucracy, according to Mr. Ramesh’s letter, a copy of which was viewed by The Hindu.
Though the CAF Act was passed in 2016, the Rules were finalised and made public only in August this month.
The government said Mr. Ramesh’s concerns were unfounded. When the draft rules were prepared in February, they were open to public comments and Mr. Ramesh had not responded, according to Siddhanta Das, Director-General (Forests). He said that the presence of a state officer in the village committee was required because it was public money that was being disbursed. “The chairman of the committee will be a villager and we have a member secretary from the government for looking at financial disbursement,” he said. The CAF authority was expected to be in place by September 30, he added.
The CAF Act has a tumultuous history. In 2016, the Congress and the BJP were deadlocked in the Rajya Sabha over the passage of the long-pending Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill. It was passed after late Anil Madhav, the then Environment Minister, assured Parliament that the Act would not undermine the provisions of the FRA.
(Inputs by Sandeep Phukan)