‘No tribals in Delhi,so can’t implement Act’

Now,the Forest department has called for the dissolution of a committee set up to work out the rights of traditional forest dwellers. The committee has members from the Environment and Forest departments and also wildlife experts from across the city. The committee was also to identify critical wildlife habitats,along with recognising forest access for traditional and tribal inhabitants.

Neither holds for Delhi,says the Forest department. “There are simply no forest-dwelling tribals in the city. We wrote to the Law department on this. They recommended that the Act could not be applied in this case,” he says.

“We are also not in a position to notify critical wildlife habitats as we don’t have such conditions in the city. We have the Asola Sanctuary and there are no plans for creating any other wildlife sanctuaries. The Law department has advised us to state that this cannot be done in Delhi. We have written to the Ministry of Environment and Forests stating our position that there are no traditional and tribal forest dwellers or any critical wildlife zones,” he says.

But there are encroachments. The High Court has handed over 13 acres of land in Mukhmailpur in Outer Delhi near Narela to the Forest department. The land,which was in the care of the Delhi Jal Board,was illegally encroached. This will now be developed into a city forest. Another new city forest is being planted on a 30 acre plot at the ITO Chungi near Laxmi Nagar.

While several new city forests have been created for the Commonwealth Games,most of them have still not been notified as protected,a process which the Department says it is “working on”.