Suburban rail: MoEF panel questions land for afforestation

Bengaluru: Responding to the Karnataka government’s proposal seeking 46 acre of forest near Devanahalli to build a depot for the suburban rail project, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has raised questions over the land provided for compensatory afforestation while expressing its displeasure over the failure of the forest department.

In 2021, Rail Infrastructure Development Company (Karnataka) Limited or KRIDE submitted a proposal seeking 45.96-acre forest in Akkupete village of Devanahalli taluk for constructing a depot within 900 metres from the terminal station. The agency offered equivalent forest land - 46 acres - in Sasulu village of Doddaballapur taluk as compensatory afforestation measure.

Under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, use of forest land for non-forest purposes should be avoided and alternatives should be explored. While KRIDE said that alternatives were explored near Jnana Bharathi and Bettahalasur, the regional empowered committee was not impressed.

The committee expressed concern over the “sincerity” of KRIDE in identifying the alternative land while pulling up forest officers for failing to guide the agency.

“The alternatives had been proposed so that they can be automatically rejected. The local forest authorities have failed to direct the user agency for providing reasonable alternatives,” it said, seeking a thorough report.

The committee noted that the non-forest land proposed for compensatory afforestation (CA) has a road used by the villages situated nearby.

“User agency may provide an encumbrance-free non-forest land and further explore the possibility of shifting the identified CA land towards the reserved forest boundary to make it contiguous with the Ujjaini state forest,” it said.

Seeking clarifications on nine issues, the committee directed the forest department to incorporate suitable measures to protect the CA land from future encroachments, noting that the area is near to villages.

It can be recalled that the deputy conservator of forests, Bengaluru Rural division had said that the proposal could not be recommended, citing that the diversion of forest land will mean felling of 17,615 trees. However, her superiors recommended the project stating that of the said trees, 11,185 were acasia and 6,193 were eucalyptus
while 237 belonged to different species. The committee, however, directed the officials to conduct a detailed enumeration and prepare a plan for translocation.

“An exercise to explore translocation of suitable species needs to be carried out. As prepared for the BBMP limits, listing of trees that can be retained on site, translocated/transplanted could be prepared for the forest area as well, in consultation with the forest department,” it said.

Sources said that there were several instances where the forest department got into a tricky situation by accepting problematic land for CA.

“CA land should be carefully chosen. However, there is a general tendency to accept whatever the agency proposes. This has led to cases where land with tall trees (deemed forest) was given for CA. In another case, a land under litigation was given as CA land,” an official said.