In a bid to preempt any more construction on private forest land, the state government has ordered all non-agriculture permissions issued on such lands to be revoked.

The state Revenue and Forest Department issued orders last week to all district collectors asking them to not only revoke non-agriculture (NA) permissions granted on private forest lands, but also inform the concerned civic body to cancel any building permissions issued on such land. NA permission is the basic permission that allows developers to exploit such a land commercially for residential, commercial or industrial purpose. The move is bound to deal a severe blow to several powerful landowners which includes some of the state’s political heavyweights also.

More than three decades ago, about 2.58 lakh hectare of forest land was acquired by the state under the Private Forest (Acquisition) Act 1975. Of this, 87,000-odd hectares of private forest land was soon restored to the land owners with the rider that non-forest activities would not be permitted.

However, the land records failed to reflect the status of these tracts of lands as private forest land as the Revenue Department never made the entries. As a result, the respective district collectors issued NA permissions for carrying out construction on thousands of hectares of private forest land.

“We have issued the orders after the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) brought to our notice that district collectors are still issuing these permissions,” said joint revenue secretary Ramakant Asmar, whose department issued the circular on March 18.

In Mumbai and Thane, several ongoing and existing residential projects spread over 1,200 hectares were declared as illegal after a PIL, by the Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG), brought to the Bombay High Court’s notice the state government’s failure to protect the designated forest land. While the case is currently being heard in the Supreme Court, the Forest Department officials state that they want to prevent any further cases by canceling the NA permission itself.

“We have asked for all NA permissions on private forest land in Maharashtra to be cancelled after a recent incident in Pune where in about four to five cases, the collector has issued NA permission on private forest land,” said an official from the PCCF’s office.

BEAG’s Debi Goenka terms the move as a “long overdue step”. “This is something they should have done three years ago and not when they know that the case is slated for hearing in the Supreme Court on March 23. Since the time the PIL was filed, action was taken against construction projects in Mumbai, but in Pune and elsewhere in the state there was no such attempt,” Goenka said.