Kendrapada: Around 40,507.56 hectares of forest land has been encroached upon in Odisha, said Kirti Vardhan Singh, minister of state for environment, forest and climate change in the Lok Sabha.
Responding to a question from Jaipur MP Manju Sharma on Monday, he said protection and management of forests is the responsibility of the concerned state govt or union territory.
The data revealed that Assam tops the list of encroachment of forest (213,253.91 hectares), followed by Maharashtra (57,554.87), Arunachal Pradesh (53,499.96), Jharkhand (20,040.47), Chhattisgarh (16,891.225), Tamil Nadu (15,768.48), Andhra Pradesh (13,318.16), Gujarat (13,008.119), Punjab (7,567.42), Uttarakhand (4,992.43), Kerala (4,975.52), Tripura (4,242.37), Andaman (3,742.08), Sikkim (469.16), Daman & Diu (48.99), and D&N Haveli (39.78 hectares), added the minister.
To prevent the encroachment, appropriate legal provisions are in place in the Indian Forest Act 1927, the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, and the Local Forest Acts/Rules. This ministry issues advisories to state govts/UT administrations to remove encroachments on forest land as per the provisions of law and ensure no further encroachments take place.
To prevent encroachments, different steps are taken by the forest departments, which include survey and demarcation of forest areas, fixing of pillars along the forest boundary, and regular patrolling by field staff. Forest departments also use a range of modern technologies such as geographical information system, remote sensing, and global positioning system to check encroachments in forest areas. The joint forest management committees have also been established at village levels involving local communities for protection, conservation, and management of forests, added the minister.