Weddings in forests may not need permit

THE MINISTRY SAYS ALL TEMPORARY ACTIVITIES CAN BE CONDUCTED WITH APPROVAL OF THE DIVISIONAL FOREST OFFICER OF THE RANGE

NEWDELHI: Weddings, exhibitions, concerts, film shoots and other events of a temporary nature may now be allowed inside forests without the requirement of prior permission from the Centre under the Forest Conservation Act, a decision that has opened a debate on their likely impact on the wilderness.

In a letter dated October 11 addressed to forest secretaries of states and union territories, a copy of which was seen by HT, the environment ministry said all such temporary activities can be conducted with approval of the divisional forest officer (DFO) of the range. The letter said the ministry had been receiving communications on whether the Forest Conservation Act applied to temporary activities inside forests.

“The matter has been examined in detail in the ministry and it has been decided that temporary work in forest land which does not involve part of any protected area, breaking up or clearing of forest land or portion thereof, assigning by way of lease or otherwise to firm, organisation or a person and does not create any right over such forest land…will not require prior approval of central government under the FC Act,” it added.

Only 23% of India’s over 700,000 sq km of forest cover falls in the protected category.

“The letter does not clarify what is temporary use or its duration. Would a film shoot, cultural or religious event be part of it? It is very likely that there would be rights of forest dwellers that persist on such land. It needs to be examined whether entering and using these areas only with permission of the forest department can amount to trespassing on other existing or pending rights. Also, if no approval is needed from the Centre, there will also not be any oversight mechanism,” said Kanchi Kohli, legal researcher at the Centre for Policy Research.

Experts raised concerns about the impact of such activities on biodiversity and forest dwellers. “I think any kind of anthropocentric activity even if it is temporary is going to be detrimental for the diminishing wilderness...” BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh government plans to sack or retire higher secondary school teachers if they fail to clear an efficiency test for the second time conducted on Monday to check their teaching capabilities.

State school education minister Prabhuram Chaudhary said the decision was taken after seeing the performance of the teachers, who were provided the second chance to clear the open-book test. Officials said the exam was first organised on June 12 across the state’s 51 districts to test the subject knowledge of teachers of about 700 schools. The test was conducted following the poor board examination results of the students in these schools.

The officials said of the 5,700 teachers who took the test, about 1,400 failed. The teachers were asked to reappear on Monday after a three-month training.

Jayshree Kiyawat, a school education department official, said: “But the results stunned us because about 1,400 teachers could not even score 32% marks. We organised the training to give them another chance. But if they fail again, we would not allow them to spoil students’ future.” Chaudhary said it was impossible to improve quality of education without quality teachers.