Centre has no details of panel report on deemed forests: RTI

The Union environment ministry does not have details of the state expert committee reports which identified so-called deemed forests in every state following Supreme Court's 1996 order in TN Godavarman Vs Union of India matter, according to information received under a right to information or RTI application.

- Jayashree Nandi

The Supreme Court, in that December 12, 1996 order directed that each state government constitute an expert committee within a month to identify areas which are "forests" as per the dictionary meaning, irrespective of whether they are so notified, recognised or classified under any law, and irrespective of their ownership.

Retired IFS officer, former principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) Kerala, Prakriti Srivastava in January this year sought the names of all states that have submitted state expert committees as directed by SC in 1996; and copies of all state expert committee reports prepared as per direction of SC. In response to the query, the environment ministry, on January 25 said: "The requisite information is not available in the Forest Conservation division of the Ministry. Accordingly, a copy of the application is hereby transferred under section 6 (3) of the RTI Act of 2005 to the PIO, O/o PCCF all states/UTs to furnish information directly to the applicant, as available with them."

Srivastava filed another RTI query on January 20 which sought the latest updated GIS maps for all states and UTS containing the district wise details of the location and boundary of each plot of land that may be defined as forest for the purpose of Forest Conservation Act 1980; whether a GIS based decision support database was created as directed by the SC, and if so, a link to that; and all geo-referenced district forest maps with details of areas identified as forests in compliance with the 1996 order. However, the weblink did not provide geo-referenced maps of these forests according to Srivastava.