news details |
|
|
| Jammu Kashmir loses forest cover as encroachments continue | | `Ministers, politicians patronize land mafia' | | Bashir Assad
Jammu, Feb 23: The Jammu and Kashmir State is losing rapidly its green forest cover as encroachment of forest land continues across the State. The forest land has shrunk from 20,230 sq km to just 7,590 sq km as per data furnished by the State Department of Forests earlier this year.
Though the Minister for Forests Mian Altaf has been asking the officers of his department to make accountability more effective to safeguard the interests of the State but the vested interests within the department in connivance with the high profile politicians and Ministers are facilitating the land grabbing endangering the green cover of the State alarmingly. And the single largest reason responsible for the depletion of green cover has been attributed to illegal human encroachments, which have consumed approximately 13,360 sq km of forest land as per official statistics.
In the wake of mounting public pressure on the State Forest Department for its failure to curb the forest encroachments, the department made some significant disclosures in November regarding involvement of a senior State Cabinet Minister in the illegal forest land grab case in Sedav village of South Kashmir's Shopian district, which has proved embarrassing for the State coalition Government. However, a senior Minister from Jammu who has reportedly grabbed a good chunk of forest land and has altered the revenue records by making false entries showing forest land as the private property in Sunjwan, Bathindi in the name of his close confidante (name withheld).
The same Minister who after assuming the charge of his new Ministry after the recent Cabinet reshuffle bulldozed about one hundred slum houses of poor nomads in Sidhra area but turned deaf and dumb towards the encroachment on State/Forest land by a senior National Conference leader in the same area.
The NC leader has reportedly purchased three kanals of land but has grabbed near about 30 kanals which according to sources stand wired by the leader.
In the border districts of Poonch and Rajouri in Jammu region, the locals have been agitating against the "land mafia" (forest land grabbers) enjoying patronage of high profile politicians of ruling coalition. Local allege that human intervention at the behest of politicians in the State's ecologically sensitive zones for either constructing residential/commercial properties and plundering the premium wood species has gone unabated over the past few years, gradually depleting the forest cover.
Increasing cases of illegal encroachments by senior Cabinet Ministers surfaced in the year 2012 was quite embarrassing prompting the State Legislative Assembly to appoint a Departmental Standing Committee of State Legislative Council investigating into such cases.
In order to ascertain loopholes in various afforestation programs undertaken by the State Government over the past two decades, the Forest Ministry even roped in Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which has been entrusted with the responsibility of "satellite mapping" of the green cover in the State.
The Forest Department officials said the removal of encroached forests, illegal structures and afforestation drives were carried out in full swing with 217 acres of forest land in Jammu division alone having been cleared of encroachments and 3.97 lakh plants were planted in over 500 hectares of degraded forest land in Billawar, Kathua, Jammu, Udhampur and Ramanagar forest regions of Jammu.
Rising cases of man-animal conflict in the Valley, particularly with leopards, and bears caused death of nearly 50 people and injured over 300, especially children and old people.
The State Forest Minister, Mian Altaf is mulling to constitute a man-animal conflict policy that provides measures for keeping the wild animals away from the human populated areas. Even the State Legislative Assembly stepped in to impress upon the authorities in preserving the natural habitat of wild animals so that they do not attack humans.
Man-animal conflict in Kashmir, as per Chief Wildlife Warden, AK Singh, has become a political issue leading to law and order problems in the State. What is however, required is to conceive a plan of complete removal of the settlement and any other encroached forest land within five years.
The plan to overcome human disturbances in the forest land and afforestation is though a challenging task but the constitution of district encroachment committees could go a long way in at least providing a deterrent to further encroachment. Over the trend of increasing encroachment, different study reports have warned serious consequences if the encroachment is not addressed. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
