State board recommends de-notification of forest area
The move to de-notify the hill area in Bansi Pahadpur comes after forest dept survey finds that there are no animals or forests in the area
JAIPUR/ BHARATPUR: The State Wildlife Board has recommended to the National Wildlife Board to de-notify an area in Banshi Pahadpur hills in Bharatpur district as a sanctuary after a survey by the forest department found that there were no animals or forests in the area.
In January end, the state government had initiated the process to denotify the hill area on the basis of the survey. Pink sandstones mined from the hills are being supplied to Ayodhya for the construction of Ram temple.
District Forest officer of Bharatpur, Mohit Gupta said, “Two-week back, the State Wildlife Board had passed the proposal recommended by the board’s standing committee and thereafter forwarded the recommendation to the National Wildlife Board.”
“It is learnt that the National Wildlife Board had held discussions last week on the proposal to denotify (the hill area),”
Gupta added.
A senior forest department official familiar with the developments said, “The standing committee has agreed to the proposal of denotification, as there is no forest or animal in the area. The Illegal mining in the area is not only causing revenue loss to the government, but also unnecessarily tarnishing the mining department’s image.”
“The recommendation has been made to denotify 643 hectare land of the 2000-hectare land area in Banshi Pahadpur wildlife sanctuary for mining,” he said.
A retired IFS officer on the condition anonymity said that if accepted, it would be second instance of denotification of a forestland in Rajasthan. In 2017, the Rajasthan government had denotified 357.23 hectare land of the Ramgarh Wildlife Sanctuary paving way for local residents to avail the benefits of development schemes.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which has been sourcing stones from the Banshi Pahadpur hills for the construction of Ram temple for the past five years, had approached the Bharatpur district administration over a delay in supply of stones in September-october 2020.
The district administration had then said that the stones were being illegally mined after three trucks, loaded with pink sandstones, were seized on Sep27 last year in a joint operation of the police, forest and revenue departments.
An official of the district administration said, “Pink and yellow sandstones are high in demand. Illegal mining activity in the area feeds processing units in the district. The district administration takes action against illegal mining randomly.”
According to the state mines department officials, 42 legal mines of pink, red and yellow sandstones operated in the Banshi Pahadpur forest area until December 1996. In an order on December 12, 1996, the Supreme Court prohibited non-forest activities in forest areas without diversion under the Forest Act.