Violation of Forest Act by cement cos
SHILLONG: Most of the cement companies, which had violated the Forest Conservation Act by encroaching into the forest land, have submitted their applications to the State Government for compensatory afforestation.
Informing this, the Forest and Environment Minister Prestone Tynsong, however, admitted that some problems have cropped up in acquiring land for the cement companies “since the land acquisition Bill is yet to be amended by Parliament”.
It may be mentioned that the State Government will acquire land on behalf of the cement companies for facilitate the process of compensatory afforestation after the nine cement companies in East Jaintia Hills were found to have encroached into the forest land.
“Once the Bill gets Parliament’s approval, we will start the land acquisition process,” he said.
Reacting to a query, he said that penalty would be imposed under the Forest Conservation Act on the erring cement companies.
The requisite fund for the purchase of the land would be given by the cement companies and 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.
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.
There are eight cement plants – Cement Manufacture Co Ltd (Star Cement), Meghalaya Cement Ltd (Topcem), Adhunik Cement Ltd, JUD Cement Private Ltd, Hill Cement Company Ltd, Goldstone Cement Ltd, Green Valley Industries Ltd, and Amrit Cement Industries Ltd – in Jaintia Hills alone. Another company, Meghalaya Minerals & Mines Ltd, is located in Lumshnong.