 "Government disowns its controversial draft National Forest Policy")
The environment ministry has distanced itself from the recently released draft National Forest Policy and claimed it was not meant to be put in the public domain. It said the draft was merely a study report from a government institute.
A press release from the environment ministry on June 25 said, “The ministry has not issued any draft notification on the National Forest Policy. What has been uploaded on the website was a study done by the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal. The study has not been evaluated by the ministry. The ministry has not taken any decision on the draft forest policy. The study report prepared by IIFM Bhopal was inadvertently uploaded as the draft forest policy on the website.”
But even hours after the press release from the ministry, the draft continued to be available on the ministry’s website, though buried in a webpage deep inside to which no link was publicly available. The office memorandum of the ministry inviting people’s comments on the draft policy also continued to be available on the ministry’s website, again uploaded against a webpage the link to which was not published publicly.
Business Standard had reported on the government’s draft National Forest Policy on June 20, noting how it contravened the Forest Rights Act and at the same time promoted the idea of permitting industry to use government forest land. While asking for changes in laws that did not adhere to the policy, it proposed a new administrative and legal regime that would hand back management control over tribal forest lands to the forest bureaucracy, which the FRA disallows.
A press release from the environment ministry on June 25 said, “The ministry has not issued any draft notification on the National Forest Policy. What has been uploaded on the website was a study done by the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal. The study has not been evaluated by the ministry. The ministry has not taken any decision on the draft forest policy. The study report prepared by IIFM Bhopal was inadvertently uploaded as the draft forest policy on the website.”
But even hours after the press release from the ministry, the draft continued to be available on the ministry’s website, though buried in a webpage deep inside to which no link was publicly available. The office memorandum of the ministry inviting people’s comments on the draft policy also continued to be available on the ministry’s website, again uploaded against a webpage the link to which was not published publicly.
Business Standard had reported on the government’s draft National Forest Policy on June 20, noting how it contravened the Forest Rights Act and at the same time promoted the idea of permitting industry to use government forest land. While asking for changes in laws that did not adhere to the policy, it proposed a new administrative and legal regime that would hand back management control over tribal forest lands to the forest bureaucracy, which the FRA disallows.
On June 25, the director-general of forests in a press release said, “As director-general of forests, I would like to clarify that this document is not the draft forest policy.”
In contrast to the environment ministry’s latest claims, the office memorandum of the ministry dated June 16 read, “The ministry is in the process of revising the present National Forest Policy, 1988. A draft National Forest Policy in this regard has been prepared and is enclosed. All stakeholders are requested to send their comments, if any, by email … by June 20, 2016.” Signed by the DIG Forests in charge of forest policy, the notification was also marked to the NIC Cell of the ministry to be uploaded to the environment ministry site along with the draft, where it remained even at the time of filing this story. The subject line of the office memorandum also read, “Draft National Forest Policy, 2016 — inviting comments regarding”.
The environment ministry on Saturday claimed, “The ministry has an elaborate procedure for preparing a draft policy document, which takes into account multiple inputs from all stakeholders, state governments, think-tanks and public consultation. No process has been carried out on the document prepared by IIFM Bhopal, which is only one of the inputs. A draft forest policy will be put in the public domain once due process is carried out and views of all stakeholders taken into account.”
The draft policy which the ministry has now disclaimed ownership over mentions it was commissioned by the environment ministry, funded by the
UN and prepared by the IIFM, a government institution. The preface to the document said it had been prepared “based on village-level focus group discussions, regional and national consultations, inputs from various stakeholders and analysis of primary and secondary data sets carried out during the years 2015 and 2016.” It is not written as a report recommending to the government what should or should not be included in a policy but as a policy document of the government with each page also marked as “National Forest Policy, 2016 (draft).”
YESTERDAY’S DRAFT POLICY, TODAY’S STUDY REPORT
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Environment ministry claims the recently released draft National Forest Policy was merely a study report from a government institute
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In contrast to the ministry’s latest claims, the document dated June 16 read, “A draft National Forest Policy… has been prepared and is enclosed”
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Signed by DIG Forests, the notification was also marked to the NIC for being uploaded on the website
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The official memorandum, inviting people’s comments on the draft policy continues to be available on its website
- The document had proposed to permit industry to use government forest land
In May, when the draft Geospatial Information Regulation Bill was met with severe criticism for being ambiguous and imposing a penalty of up to Rs 100 crore or seven years’ imprisonment for wrong depiction of India’s map, the Union home ministry said it would revise the Bill. The ‘tweaked’ Bill is likely to be presented before the Cabinet soon.
