New Delhi: An advisory panel of the Ministry of Environment has given a clear approval for diversion/D-notifications of forest land protected for several projects in various states. These include a turn of more than 109 hectares of forest land in West Bengal for a coal mine and de-notifications of more than 1,501 hectares of reserve forest land to transfer five villages from the main area of Amarabad Tiger Reserve in Telangana.The project in West Bengal is related to the turn of forest land in Durgpur Forest Division for ABC Coal Mine, a project that includes rehabilitation of 629 families. The proposal was first presented in 2019 and had to undergo several rounds of investigation, amendment and field visits. The decision on these projects was taken in a meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Environment on 30 July.In its proposal of the advisory panel, in the case of de-notification of reserve forest land in Nagarkurnul district of Telangana, the state government said that the purpose of transfer was to strengthen wildlife housing, reduce human-forest struggle and protect the ecosystem.According to the state government’s proposal, a total of 1,54,977 trees of 27 species will be dropped for exercise. The proposal also includes transfer of villages in two phases. Other proposals for the turn of the forests receiving in-primary approval from the advisory panel include incentive drilling for hydrocarbons in the Nominal reserved forest in Namfur reserved forest in Changlang district in Arunachal Pradesh in Golaghat district of oil and gas exploration drilling. In these cases, the scale of forests in these cases is much less than projects in West Bengal and Telangana.
