the goan I network
PANAJI
Under pressure to resolve the vexed issue of finalising the zoning of private forests, the State government has formed multiple teams to conduct site inspections and physically verify the properties identified by a review panel in June 2018.
Official sources said the decision to set up the teams to physically verify the properties was taken after additional secretary (Revenue) Anthony D’Souza, refrained from taking a firm decision either to finalise the list of properties to be demarcated as private forests or exclude any from the list finalised by the review panel.
Instead, D’Souza recommended that manpower be deployed to physically verify the claims and counterclaims of the land owners and interested parties who objected to their properties being categorised as ‘private forests’ by the review panel.
As per the recommendations of D’Souza’s report, the State government has set up seven teams which will inspect the properties identified as private forests. Each team will comprise three members and will be headed by an Inspector of Settlement and Land Records. A Range Forest Officer and talathi of the respective areas will be part of the teams.
The State government had rejected the June 2018 report of the ‘Review Panel’ which in turn and prepared it based on two earlier reports of the Karapurkar and Sawant committee done decades ago. This decision of the State government however earned it a rap from the National Green Tribunal which imposed a hefty Rs 10,000 per day fine until it submits the report.
Private holdings which have a minimum 0.4 density tree canopy and are located in five or more hectares contiguous to forest areas are liable
to be earmarked as ‘private forests’.
The State government was mandated by the NGT to finish the process of demarcating the private forests across the State by March 31 last year. Goa skipped that deadline, earning the ire of the NGT after it arbitrarily rejected the Review Committee’s report.
