The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest, & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), has flagged anomalies by the State Forest Department in identifying land for compensatory afforestation (CA).
In a recent FAC meeting held in the last week of September, the MoEF&CC has deferred a proposal submitted by M/s. MSPL Limited after detecting a slew of incongruities in the identification of land for CA in Belagavi district.
As part of the proposal, the company identified non-forestland in Survey Nos. 6/3, 6/4, 6/5, and 6/6 of Amagaon village, Jamboti Hobli, Khanapur Taluk, and Belagavi district located within the limits of Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary and measuring about 30 hectares, for CA.
These parcels were subsequently transferred and mutated in favour of the Forest Department in January 2023, and CA suitability certificates were issued by the Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF), Belagavi division, against two earlier forest clearance proposals.
However, the minutes of the FAC meeting indicate that the same parcels of land were later found to have been notified as “Deemed Forest” under a Government of Karnataka notification dated May 5, 2022. Despite this, the land had been recommended for CA without proper verification of its legal and ecological status.
