Bhubaneswar: With an aim to speed up proposals for diversion of forests, the Odisha government has created a land bank of 26,500 acre in 18 districts to undertake compensatory afforestation works.
Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Revenue & Disaster Management, Satyabrata Sahu gave this information Wednesday after attending a meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary SC Mahapatra to discuss forest diversion related issues.
The land for afforestation has been identified in the districts of Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Bolangir, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Sambalpur, Angul, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Jharsuguda, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Subarnapur and Nayagarh during the month of January, Sahu informed.
The maximum amount of land (10,800 acre) was identified in Keonjhar district. A target was set to increase the size of the land bank to 50,000 acre by March, 2022 and to one lakh hectare of land within a year, Sahu stated.
It was also decided in the meeting that Additional Chief Secretary R & DM would be the nodal officer for allotment of land for compensatory afforestation (CA).
Old forest issues in housing areas of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and Odisha State Housing Board (OSHB) where people are staying for nearly four decades ago were resolved in the meeting.
Considering the different problems faced by people who live in Barmunda, Paikanagar, Kanan Vihar and Jayadev Vihar areas of Bhubaneswar from the 1970s, Mahapatra directed BDA to complete the forest diversion proposals with a month.
He also directed officials to undertake compensatory afforestation (CA) against the forest land to be diverted.
PNN