Rajan Gandhi
The significance of forests can be summarized by one of the most popular sayings of the 15th Century Kashmiri saint and poet, Sheikh ul Alam: “Ann Poshi Teli Yeli Wan Poshi” (food will last as long as forests last). But as per Jammu and Kashmir State Forest Policy-2010, the past few decades have witnessed exponential increase in human and livestock population, rapid industrialization, and a spurt in developmental activities. These developmental processes have resulted in loss of forest area accompanied by an overall degradation of forest vegetation and forest soils. The effects of degradation of forests are already visible in drying up of perennial water sources at many places, accelerated soil erosion, flash floods, silting up of reservoirs, and loss of biodiversity with reduced forest productivity. Jammu and Kashmir’s evergreen coniferous forests and snow covered peaks have a direct bearing on the region’s agriculture, energy and tourism industries as its beautiful lakes, rivers, agricultural plains and meadows owe their existence and economic production to the forests. 2014 floods in both the regions, drastic shrinking of water bodies including world famous Dal, Wullar, Suriansar and Mansar lakes is a testimony to the above facts, an irreparable environmental loss.
Jammu and Kashmir has a total forest cover of 20230 Sq km (20.23 lakh hectares). There are no reserved or unreserved or village category of forests in Jammu and Kashmir as applicable in rest of India. Till formation of UT we have demarcated and undemarcated category of forests and even those have also not been worked out till now. Out of the total forest area, 12066 Sq km are in Jammu region, followed by Kashmir region with 8128 Sq km and Ladakh region with only 36 Sq km. Kashmir region has 50.97%, Jammu region has 45.89%, while Ladakh region has only 0.11% area under forest cover. UT of J&K have forests cover of 48% of the total geographical area which is way above the national average of 24.47 % but with least staff having absolutely no powers to protect forests. The J&K State Forest Policy was approved more than 23 years after formulation of National Forest Policy in 1988 and this deliberate political delay has caused irreparable loss to our forests. As per the forest policy, the Government was expected to retrieve the forest land from encroachers, upgrade and maintain demarcation records in digital format on GIS using remote sensing technology. For effective protection of forest land, land records of revenue department have to be reconciled with demarcation record of forest department in a time bound manner starting with highly vulnerable areas. Almost nine years down the line, since the Forest Policy was approved, no such concrete measures have been taken by the Government. Despite letter after letter from concerned Forest Department officials to Revenue Department practically no reconciliation has been undertaken with the result revenue records have marked forest land as state land. Now under UT administration certain illegal mutations have been cancelled in certain districts. The increase in forest fires happen due to non-demarcation of forest land in the UT resulting in more barren land and more encroachments of forest land.
According to common observation much of the damage to forests has occurred during the years of intense armed conflict for over a decade since 1990. Millions of trees cut unchallenged, mountains devoid of forests in acres. As per an estimate 50,459 acres of forest land is under encroachment of which only 14,194 acres fall in Kashmir valley and astonishingly around 36,265 acres in Jammu region where virtually no effect of terrorism is there. Forest Department has registered few cases in police stations and but cases linger on, officials get transferred and culprits go scot free. Corruption charges have also been leveled against some forest officials for condoning the smuggling of timber from various areas of Jammu and Kashmir. Saw mills inside forests have been confiscated time and again and virtually no action against any forest official on account of corruption charges speaks about the seriousness of the concerned authorities.
The Forest Department has to regulate the indiscriminate diversion of forest land for non forestry purposes so as to maintain ecological balance between the developmental needs of the UT and the conservation of natural resources. When any land is permitted to be diverted for a non-forest use, cost of compensation in terms of Net Present Value, Compensatory Afforestation (CA) and other restoration activities are paid by the user agency. All these resources are at present being collected as CAMPA fund. In order to manage the Compensatory Afforestation, the State has constituted State CAMPA under SRO-354 providing for three tier regulation of activities. But department failed to give desired results on this account also.
Stagnation at one post for decades is the order of the day with practically no cadre management. Any successful organization has strong and wide base at the bottom but reverse is true for J&K Forest Department virtually sealing no promotion opportunities for the base employees as there is no time bound promotion policy at all. Merit and performances are no criteria for transfers as pick and choose have been the policy till now. Even under Governor Rule and now UT much has not changed as present PCCF himself has superseded seniority of three others and moreover recent transfer of a much junior officer (rank of ACF) for the post of Secretary Technical (earlier held by CCF Planning & Projects), a post equivalent to Special Secretary, in the Civil Secretariat superseding almost fifty IFS officers and nearly thirty SFS officers is practical example of how things are moving even under present administration. These out of turn favors to specific employee have cascading demoralizing effect of outstanding officers.
Interestingly the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) gave clearances to 125 projects involving diversion of forest land between August and October 2019. In its 117th meeting only, last meeting of the body before the forest clearance process shifted to Chandigarh to the regional office of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) after October 31 order abrogating Article 370 and UTs coming to existence, the FAC cleared 41 projects.
Roshni Act of 2005 was in fact a way out to legalize all land encroachments despite the fact that a NOC from forest department was must to transfer the land. There are allegations that under Roshni Act majority of these transfer deals were for one particular section of society especially in Jammu region resulting in demographic changes. Such is the impact that as per official sources once the total forest area of 26,900 sq. kms in 1947 has now been reduced to less than 18,000 sq kms now. Half of the forests in Jammu and Kashmir are open without any demarcation. Thousands of acres of forest land are still under encroachment and Government has failed to retrieve that from encroachers. Even after repeated intervention of Division Bench not much ice has been cut on ground though new UT laws are now applicable. How NOC stand granted to run educational institutions and banking facilities in the property constructed on the land which has been encroached? Factually, the Division Bench of High Court has now issued notice to the Secretary, Board of School Education Jammu, to explain as to how the ETT institution has been permitted to be run on public/forest land. Even notice has been issued to Secretary, Revenue Department as to how the forest land has been registered in the name of private persons.
There are virtually no answers to this mess and only blame games. Why even now UT administration is ‘not notifying forest area after immediate reconciliation of Revenue and Forest records’ for which all surveys have already been done by Forest Department. Frankly speaking a demoralized department which has budget of crores to safeguard natural gold of our Jammu and Kashmir is virtually a toothless tiger with no support from other departments and it remains to be seen how department is able to retrieve its land especially in Jammu region, some accountability will be fixed or not, new colonies like Bhatindi, Sidra or Nagrota on forest land will be demolished as has been done by Supreme Court in numerous cases or the spineless department which has been unable to perform its assigned duties till now will remain in deep slumber even now. Cat and mouse game is on, who will win it nobody can judge but one hopes that with Central Government so serious about corruption and transparency at least now this very important department of UT of Jammu and Kashmir is able to retrieve its land and sets its own house in order in a professional manner with all employee’s issues are taken in right perspective and sorted out in a timely manner. It takes time for corrective action but it’s never too late as they say.
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