To No One's Gain

Government takes back land it gave to people as their right. Now, people of three districts face eviction and have nowhere to go.

- Ishan Kukreti Korea, Chhattisgarh

IT’S TIME to sow paddy in Khadgawan block of Chhattisgarh’s Korea district. It is also the marriage season. But conversations at any gathering here do not drift from compensatory afforestation. On January 15, 2019, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change gave in-principle approval to divert 800 hectares (ha) of forestland for mining to the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited. The public sector unit proposes to undertake mining in the Parsa coal block of Hasdeo Arand forest in Surguja and Surajpur districts, through the Rajasthan Collieries Limited, a unit of Adani Enterprises Limited. The decision has not only wreaked havoc in the lives of the people of Korea district, but these two districts as well.

The state government has identified around 1,600 ha of degraded forestland in 16 villages of Khadgawan to compensate for the forest loss. While residents of Surguja and Surajpur face eviction, the people of Korea will lose the land they received under individual and community forest rights, under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. Khadgawan is home to around 0.1 million people, of which 35 per cent, or about 36,000 people, depend on cultivation for livelihood.

Compensatory afforestation is essential under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, which says any diversion of forestland must be compensated by planting trees over an equal area of revenue land, or twice the area if plantation is being done on forestland.