* The recommendation, if implemented, will increase the cost of industry, mining, irrigation, and other projects tremendously
By Kartik Lokhande
While
the Centre and State Government both are talking of conducive
atmosphere for industries and developmental projects, a High Level
Committee appointed to look into the forest and environment related laws
has made a recommendation that will increase projects costs
tremendously.
The High Level Committee on Forest and Environment
Related Laws, which submitted its report to the Central Government
recently has recommended that the Net Present Value (NPV) of forest land
‘should be increased at least five times’. While making this
recommendation, the committee has observed that the NPV is currently
‘underestimated’.
The committee was formed in August 2014 by Union
Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change was headed by T S R
Subramanian, former Union Cabinet Secretary. Vishwanath Anand, former
Secretary to Government of India; Justice (retd) A K Srivastava, former
Judge, Delhi High Court; K N Bhat, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court;
Bishwanath Sinha, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests,
Climate Change; and Hardik Shah, Member Secretary of Gujarat Pollution
Control Board, were the members.
After ‘considering’ the ‘issues’
relating to compensatory afforestation, the committee recommended that
NPV should ‘immediately be fixed at least 5 times of the present rates’.
While making the recommendation, the committee stated that it took into
account various factors including inflation. Besides, it also noted
that the value of forests ‘has generally been underestimated’ in the
past. The committee went on to recommend that the NPV should be
‘periodically reviewed and revised’. Considering the factors it took
into account while recommending increase in NPV, the periodical revision
in its rates may be only upwards.
The recommendation, if accepted
by the Government and implemented, may sound a death knell for many a
project and result in tremendous increase in cost of even major
projects. Interestingly, the committee has realised this. However, in
its words, “The committee believes that such increase will not
significantly impact the major project parameters.”
The committee
was constituted to assess the status of implementation of six forest and
environment related laws. These laws include Environment (Protection)
Act, Forest (Conservation) Act, Wildlife (Protection) Act, Water
(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, Air (Prevention and Control
of Pollution) Act, and The Indian Forests Act.
As far as
compensatory afforestation is concerned, the committee has made several
other recommendations also. These include ‘doing away’ with the
condition that there must be at least 33 per cent forest cover in a
State before approval is given for compensatory afforestation. Further,
the State Government should identify revenue land available for
compensatory afforestation. Where it is not available, this should be
brought in public domain. The location of available revenue land should
comply with conditions such as contiguity or proximity of a reserved or
protected forest to enable Forest Department to effectively manage the
newly planted area.
“The quantum of compensatory afforestation on
revenue land should be revised upwards to double the area, as against
the present norm of equivalent of diverted area,” the committee has
recommended. If revenue land is not available, the report states
further, compensatory afforestation on ‘thrice the amount of degraded
forest land’ should be permitted. Even, it has recommended to to utilise
abandoned mining sites for compensatory afforestation.
The
recommendations have come at a time when there has been widespread
concern over rising costs of projects and lesser availability of land
for industries, mining, irrigation etc. In the recent past, many
Government agencies had raised the demand to consider cost incurred for
payment of NPV should be treated as ‘social cost’. Adding the funds
required for payment of NPV to the project cost, would disturb
‘benefit:cost’ ratio and make project unviable. However, the High-Level
Committee has not considered this demand. Instead, it has made a strong
recommendation for ‘five times increase’ in NPV rates.
(02-02-15)
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