Today, the Rajya Sabha passed the contentious Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023. The aim of the bill is to aims to amend certain provisions under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, to extend and exempt specific types of land from the Act's applicability.

Last week, the Lok Sabha approaved the bill with voice vote.

In the Statement of Object and Reasons Of Bill, it states that it is necessary to broaden the horizon of the Act in order to achieve the objective of the country to increase the forest cover for creation of carbon sink of additional 2.5 to 3.0 billion tons of CO equivalent by 2030.

It extends the applicability of the Act to certain types of land. These include land notified as a forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or in government records after the 1980 Act came into effect.

Certain categories of lands are exempted from the purview of the Act which includes the following:

• Such forest land situated alongside a rail line or a public road maintained by the Government, which provides access to a habitation, or to a rail, and roadside amenity up to a maximum size of 0.10 hectare.
• The forest land which is situated within a distance of one hundred kilometers along international borders or Line of Control or Line of Actual Control, as the case may be, proposed to be used for construction of strategic linear project of national importance and concerning national security.
• Land up to ten hectares, proposed to be used for construction of security related infrastructure.
• Land as is proposed to be used for construction of defence related projects or a camp for paramilitary forces or public utility projects, as may be specified by the Central Government, the extent of which does not exceed five hectares in a Left Wing Extremism affected area as may be notified by the Central Government.
• Tree plantation or reafforestation raised on lands that are not declared or notified as a forest in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or under any other law for the time being in force or has been recorded in Government record as forest, as on or after the 25th October, 1980.

The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha in March, 2023 and thereafter it was referred to a 31 member Joint Parliamentary Committee that has recently submitted its report. The Committee did not propose any changes to the Bill. However, six MPs from opposition have filed the dissent note. The objections were raised by them on exemption of forest land at border areas from the purview of the Act, that might turn detrimental to Biodiversity and forest coverage of border areas especially at Himalayan region. Concerns were also raised that it may lead to exploitation of forest land by using them for non-forest purposes.

"Forest-like areas"-ie., tracts of land that have the characteristics of forests, but have not been notified under the law or recorded as 'Forest' in any government records-would be exempted under the amendment,” wrote MP Jairam Ramesh after passing of the Bill today.