Pune: The state forest department 's local division now plans to reclaim 14,000 hectares of its land pending with the revenue department in the district. The revenue department earlier managed over 35,000 hectares of land given to it by the forest department for planting and overseeing. However, the partnership's lease agreement ended in 2008, resulting in the forest department moving to reclaim all the land it had previously owned.
In the last 16 years, the department has retrieved 20,000 hectares of land and safeguarded it under the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980. However, 14,000 hectares were pending action and remained in the revenue department's custody. Deepak Pawar, assistant conservator of forests in Pune, explained, "When the forest department handed over the land to the revenue department, it was for a specific purpose.
In 1978, a Central govt order mandated that any land needed for administrative purposes must be transferred to the revenue department, which is why we gave this chunk of land to them." Nevertheless, a significant portion of the land was left unused or allocated to municipal corporations and gram panchayats for their use. Many unauthorised constructions have appeared on the vacant land, along with govt buildings.
Pawar added, "We will now acquire all of it back — in case of govt buildings on such land, we will seek compensatory land instead. There have been large-scale slum establishments set up in a few locations as well, which we will remove. There is an order from Central govt to retrieve all land owned by forest department.
" Due to this change in policy, officials stated that the district collector is promptly transferring the majority of land back from the revenue to the forest department. After completing acquisition , the latter will classify the lands as reserve forest areas, under Section 20 of the Indian Forest Act. Forest officials further clarified that this move a separate order entirely, and unrelated to the Richie Rich Cooperative Housing Society case in Supreme Court, regarding discrepancies of nearly 30 hectares found in land records in the Wanowrie area; it is also unrelated to the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) directive on Aug 23 to investigate encroachments , greenery loss and land levelling in reserved forest areas of Mohammadwadi and Kondhwa, they said.
Forest authorities elaborated that the acquisition of these lands was delayed by permanent encroachments and structures built upon it. Now, once acquired, it will demolish any temporary encroachments on these lands and demarcate the area to ensure its protection. If there are any permanent concrete structures on the land, the forest department will look into acquiring compensatory land under the FCA from the revenue department instead of opting for demolition.
Forest authorities also admitted that as a result of mismanagement, encroachers — including farmers, who have converted plots for their own agricultural use — frequently lay claim to these lands due to issues with revenue and forest department oversight. When the land was originally transferred to the revenue department, documents retained the forest department as owners or claimed disputed status, which caused the oversight, said officials. Now, forest officials said the department is committed to securing all reserved forest areas, with very minimal land being de-reserved, except for the 11 hectares allocated for the riverfront development project (RFD).
This would expand the survey and demarcation process to all reserve forest areas in Pune district. The forest department is also rigorously looking into protection of reserve forest areas, with 60km of RCC compound walls constructed around such areas in PMC limits in the last few years; similar walls of lighter materials in rural areas have taken the total length of fencing to 200km to date. Nevertheless, a large amount of compounding awaits resolution, mostly due to land claims and encroachments — 50 percent of the process is pending within PMC boundaries alone.
Mahadev Mohite, deputy conservator of forests, Pune, told TOI, "The survey is completed now, but complete demarcation is pending due to litigation. Every year, we are focusing on constructing 7-8km of walls, including in this financial year. However, we will not be able to demarcate it all due to several pending litigations.
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