Goa CM's single-minded focus is on freeing up forest lands for real estate purposes: Jairam Ramesh

New Delhi: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court directive halting the conversion of Goa's private forest land, and said bigger battles lie ahead given the "single-minded focus" of the Goa CM to free up forest lands for real estate purposes.

In a post on X, the former environment minister said the Supreme Court has very recently halted the conversion of Goa's private forest land at least for the time being.

Much earlier, the National Green Tribunal too had prohibited development of denotified forest land until physical verification of all plots was completed, he pointed out, adding that this was never done.

"The Supreme Court's order is a temporary respite. Bigger battles lie ahead given the single-minded focus of the Goa CM to free up forest lands for real estate purposes," Ramesh said.

The Supreme Court, in an interim relief earlier this month, had directed the Goa government not to issue any further conversion sanads (conversion of land use) to 855 identified and demarcated survey numbers as private forest by the Thomas and Araujo committees, according to media reports.