By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) will take a call on the quantum of penalty to be imposed on cement plants which have violated the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 as per the findings of the Joint Inspection Team (JIT) constituted by the State Government, Forest and Environment Minister Prestone Tynsong said in the Assembly on Thursday.
All these cement plants have been directed to submit their application in accordance with the Act, Tynsong said, adding that these applications would be forwarded to the MoEF which would take a call on the penalties including compensatory afforestation for the industrial units as per the provision of the Act.
The State Government had formed the Joint Inspection Team (JIT) in February last year comprising of the State Chief Conservator of Forests, CP Marak, and Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests from the Union ministry of Environment and Forests’ Regional office, BN Jha, to verify allegations that the cement companies in Jaintia Hills had flouted environmental norms and have set up their plants in forest areas.
“The JIT found that the industrial units are carrying out their operations in around 800 acres of forest land,” Tynsong said while replying to a cut motion moved by HSPDP legislator Ardent Basaiawmoit on the last day of the budget session on Thursday.
The JIT inspected the land held by nine cement companies and stated in its report: “Out of the 2,150 hectares of land inspected by the team, 838 hectares are forests, 1254 hectares are non-forest and 58 hectare remained unresolved.”
The team, however, could not inspect the remaining 1,142 hectares of land under the cement plants. The inspections were carried out in three phases between March and June last year.
The nine companies include Adhunik Cement Limited, Amrit Cement Industries Limited, Cement Manufacturing Company Limited, Cosmos Cement Limited, Green Valley Industries Limited, Goldstone Cement Limited, Hills Cement Company Limited, JUD Cements Limited and Meghalaya Cement Limited, all based in Jaintia Hills.
Tynsong said that the JIT is on the job to conduct inspection of the remaining forest areas which have been left out.
“We would have a better picture of the total forest area where illegal mining operations are going on once the inspection is completed,” Tynsong added.
The JIT report also states that an ‘independent surveying agency’ must immediately assess the mine area of these cement plants as most mines ‘prime facie’ are larger in extent than shown in map or lease granted to them.
The probe team cited that the cement plants have showed the mining areas to be less than five hectares since mining areas larger than five hectares would require environmental clearance from the MoEF.
The report added that most of the companies are in the last phase of their plants’ construction and therefore changing the physical feature of the land to the extent where ‘evidence of its past nature is lost’ making the task of ascertaining more difficult.
The joint team regretted that it faced difficulty during its inspection as there was “no definition of forest” in Meghalaya. Moreover, there were no cadastral maps or any other revenue maps in state available for forested tracts in Jaintia Hills District.
It had to rely on notes and reports of the Jaintia Hills District Forest Officer division giving NOCs and JHADC issuing certificates to the cement companies for each and every piece of land that they are either ‘non forest or not recorded as forest in any records maintained by JHADC or land cannot be defined as forest by dictionary meaning etc.’
The report also cited that the JHADC ‘has no record of village or community forest etc., which constitute a major portion of natural forest’.