Land acquisition modalities on the anvil
SHILLONG: The State Government is preparing the modalities for acquisition of land on behalf of the nine cement plants in Jaintia Hills to facilitate the process of compensatory afforestation.
“The Meghalaya Transfer of Land (Regulation), 1971 does not allow the cement plants to purchase land in the State. It is for this reason that Government is preparing modalities through which government would be acquiring land on behalf of cement plants,” Principal Secretary in charge of Forest and Environment department MS Rao said on the sidelines of a workshop with the members of the NGT here on Thursday.
Informing that the requisite fund for the purchase of the land would be given by the cement plants, Rao, however, informed that the ownership of the land would remain with the Forest and Environment department even as the compensatory afforestation exercise would be done by the department. The cement companies will bear the cost of compensatory afforestation.
“We would soon be placing the modalities prepared by the department before the Cabinet for its final approval,” Rao said.
He said that the department would initiate the land acquisition exercise once the Cabinet approved the modalities.
Rao also assured that the nine cement plants would have carry out compensatory afforestation since there is an apex court ruling on Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Ltd (LUMPL). “The process might take time due the complexity in the land acquisition process,” Principal Secretary in charge of Forest and Environment department said.
It may be mentioned that the Supreme Court on July 6, 2011 had directed LUMPL to pay certain amount to the State Government for compensatory afforestation from April 1, 2007 towards Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).
Earlier, the Joint Inspection Team (JIT) constituted by the Supreme Court had revealed that almost 50% of the nine surveyed cement plants in the Jaintia Hills district was classified as forest.
In all, 2150 hectares were inspected, of which 838 hectares are forest and 1254 non-forest, with 58 remaining unresolved. This amount does not account for all cement plant land, however; 1142 hectares were not surveyed at all during these inspections, carried out between March and June 2012.