Good news for people struggling with land conversion issues in Bhubaneswar as Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra has directed the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) to complete the forest diversion process in a month.
A high level meeting was held in virtual mode under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary at the Lokseba Bhawan on Wednesday. Additional Chief Secretary, Forest and Environment department, Mona Sharma had outlined the issues for discussion.
Considering the different dimensions of problems being faced by the people living in the housing plots belonging to the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and Odisha State Housing Board (OSHB) since 1970 arising out of conversion issues, Mahapatra directed the BDA to take steps to complete the forest diversion process in a month.
The direction will benefit 2,000 residents living in Baramunda, Paikanagar, Kanan Vihar and Jayadev Vihar localities.
Mahapatra also directed the housing authorities to undertake compensatory afforestation (CA) against the land to be diverted. The additional district magistrate (ADM), Cuttack and divisional forest officer (DFO), Athagarh were directed to demarcate the land for CA out of the land identified by the department of Revenue and Disaster Management (R & DM).
In order not to affect the development projects due to forest diversion issues, Mahapatra also directed that no forest land should be allotted for CA. “Identify degraded revenue forests and include those in the land bank for CA,” he directed.
Additional Chief Secretary, R & DM, Satyabrata Sahu informed that 18 districts contributed around 26,500 acres degraded revenue forest land to the land bank. Sahu said that the size of the land bank to be increased to 50,000 acres by March, 2022.
In the meeting, it was decided that the Additional Chief Secretary R & DM would be the nodal officer for allotment of land for compensatory afforestation.