📰 India to give land for I2U2-backed food parks
Private parties to fund projects for food security
•India will provide “appropriate land” for “food parks” across the country that will be built in collaboration with Israel, the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The plan for the “integrated food parks” was announced in a joint statement after the leaders of the I2U2 grouping — India, Israel, the UAE and the U.S. — held a summit on Thursday. The leaders said they would bring in private capital for specific projects in the fields of water, energy, transportation, health, space and food security.
•“U.S. and Israeli private sectors will be invited to lend their expertise and offer innovative solutions that contribute to the overall sustainability of the project. These investments will help maximise crop yields which, in turn, will help tackle food insecurity in South Asia and the Middle East,” said the joint statement, adding that India will “facilitate farmers’ integration into the food parks. In his comments at the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Right from the first summit held today, I2U2 has established a positive agenda.”
•The food parks aimed at cutting down “food waste and spoilage” are a few of the collaborations that the four countries declared after Thursday’s summit that was hosted by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and included UAE’s President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, U.S. President Joe Biden and Mr. Modi.
•The UAE will invest $2 billion in India to create the food parks, the joint statement announced.
•To a question from The Hindu on whether farmers were consulted before the declaration of the “integrated food park” project, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said: “When the specific food corridor project is implemented and the manner of its implementation (is on the table), we will naturally ensure that all the stakeholders involved in this process are taken on board and consulted before this project is implemented.”
•Asked how India would provide land for such a project, an official who has been part of the consultation process said that as of now, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat had come forward to participate in the project and that other States were also expected to join in.
📰 The great omission in the draft disability policy
Unless there is political inclusion of the disabled, the goal of inclusiveness and empowerment will remain elusive
•The Department of Empowerment of Person with Disabilities (DoEPwD) recently released the draft of the national policy for persons with disabilities (“Policy”) — public comments have been invited till July 15, 2022 (at: panda.dk@nic.in). The necessity for a new policy which replaces the 2006 policy was felt because of multiple factors such as India’s signing of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities; enactment of a new disability legislation (Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016) which increased the number of disabilities from seven conditions to 21 and being a party to the Incheon Strategy for Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, 2013-2022 (“Incheon commitment”). The last was prepared under the aegis of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) which identifies 10 goals for Asia-Pacific countries to ensure the inclusion and the empowerment of persons with disabilities and conformity with the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
•These commitments have changed the discourse around disability by shifting the focus from the individual to society, i.e., from a medical model of disability to a social or human rights model of disability.
•The principle of the draft policy is to showcase the Government’s commitment to the inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities by providing a mechanism that ensures their full participation in society.
•In furtherance of this commitment, the policy document highlights a detailed commitment to education, health, skill development and employment, sports and culture, social security, accessibility and other institutional mechanisms. However, a glaring omission is the absence of any commitment to the political uplift of persons with disabilities.
About political participation
•Article 29 of the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities mandates that state parties should “ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others, directly or through freely chosen representatives....” The Incheon goals also promote participation in political processes and in decision making. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 embodies these principles within its fold. The anti-discrimination commitment under this Act recognises the political domain wherein disabled people should be allowed to realise their human rights and fundamental freedoms. The documents fail to take cognisance of such mandates.
•Political empowerment and the inclusion of the disabled are an issue that has not found traction in India’s democratic discussion. India does not have any policy commitment that is aimed at enhancing the political participation of disabled people.
•The exclusion of disabled people from the political space happens at all levels of the political process in the country, and in different ways. For instance, the inaccessibility of the voting process, barriers to participation in party politics or a lack of representation at the local, State or national levels have all aggravated the marginalisation of the disabled.
Ground realities, no data
•Section 11 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act prescribes that “The Election Commission of India and the State Election Commissions shall ensure that all polling stations are accessible to persons with disabilities and all materials related to the electoral process are easily understandable by and accessible to them”. Although this mandate has been in existence for a few years, the disabled people still report accessibility issues before and on election day. There is often a lack of accessible polling booths in many locations. There is still no widespread adaptation of braille electronic voting machines and even wheelchair services at all polling centres. The Election Commission of India has developed its own procedures for handling PwDs during the electoral process.
•Political parties in India still do not find the disabled as the large electorate to specifically address their needs.
•The lack of live aggregate data on the exact number of the disabled people in every constituency only furthers their marginalisation. The lack of accessible space for party meetings, inaccessible transport for campaigning or an attitudinal barrier among voters and party leaders can be termed as contributing factors. Thus, we seldom see disability being highlighted in the manifestos of parties.
Inadequate representation
•Representation plays an imperative role in furthering the interests of the marginalised community. Our Constitution makers recognised this when they provided for reservation for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes in the legislature. Disabled people are not represented enough at all three levels of governance. The response to a right to information filing by this writer to the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry showed that the Government does not maintain data on the disability aspect of members. The first visually disabled Member of Parliament in independent India, Sadhan Gupta, hardly finds mention in our political or disability discourse. We have often failed to acknowledge disabled political personalities who have overcome the myriad barriers in India’s political space.
•However, few States have begun the initiative at local levels to increase participation. For instance, Chhattisgarh started the initiative of nominating at least one disabled person in each panchayat. If a disabled person is not elected then they are nominated as a panchayat member as per changes in the law concerned. This is a step that has increased the participation of the disabled in the political space at local level.
‘Make the right real’
•The goal of the policy document — of inclusiveness and empowerment — cannot be achieved without political inclusion. The policy can follow a four-pronged approach: building the capacity of disabled people’s organisations and ‘empowering their members through training in the electoral system, government structure, and basic organisational and advocacy skills’; the creation, amendment or removal of legal and regulatory frameworks by lawmakers and election bodies to encourage the political participation of the disabled; inclusion of civil societies to ‘conduct domestic election observation or voter education campaigns’; and a framework for political parties to ‘conduct a meaningful outreach to persons with disabilities when creating election campaign strategies and developing policy positions’.
•The document lays emphasis on the point that central and State governments must work together with other stakeholders to “make the right real”. This right can be made real only when it includes political rights/political participation within it. This will only conform to the universal principle on disability, i.e., “Nothing about us. Without us.”
📰 The road to rolling out labour codes
What are the reasons for the delay in implementing the four labour codes? Why are the central trade unions against the move?
•The government says the delay in implementing the four labour codes is due to the delay in framing rules by the States.
•The States are publishing draft rules and inviting comments from stakeholders on those draft rules. The Centre had also published draft rules for certain sections of the four codes.
•The trade unions are warning about protests if the codes are implemented. They say that the Centre will have to repeal it the way it repealed the three farm laws.
•The story so far: The Code on Wages (passed in Parliament in August, 2019), the Industrial Relations Code, the Code on Social Security, and the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (all passed on September 22 and 23, 2020 in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha) have not yet been implemented. The Centre claims that the four codes are a major step in the process of labour reforms. The central trade unions (CTUs) have held three general strikes against the codes so far, alleging that the codes will result in taking away whatever little social and economic security is left in the employment sector. The farmers’ organisations had also supported the trade unions in their protests. The employers’ associations, too, had mixed feeling towards the codes, but had generally welcomed them.
Where does it stand?
•The government says the delay in implementation is due to the delay in framing rules by the States. As labour is a concurrent subject, both the States and the Centre will have to prepare rules for the codes. The Centre had also offered help to the States so that the codes can be implemented from July 1, 2022.
•Union Minister for Labour, Bhupender Yadav, recently said that only a few States have not yet framed the rules. According to a recent report, 24 States have so far published draft rules to all four codes.
What is the process?
•The States are publishing draft rules and inviting comments from stakeholders on those draft rules. The Centre had also published draft rules for certain sections of the four codes. The trade unions have been asking the Centre to stop this piecemeal approach and release the complete rules of four codes.
•Since the four labour codes are an amalgamation of 29 Central laws and about 100 State laws that are similar to various Central laws, drafting, publishing and holding consultations with stakeholders is taking considerable time. There are also complaints by the Opposition-ruled States that the codes are “poorly drafted”.
•The Opposition had objected to the way the three codes were passed in Parliament in just two days without much discussion. Recently, Kerala Labour Minister V. Sivankutti said in the Kerala Assembly that the State prepared the draft rules hesitantly as most of the provisions in the codes are “anti-worker.”
•The Centre intends to implement the four codes together. “Our effort will be to implement the codes in 2022. The Labour Minister has offered discussions with trade unions and representatives of employers to iron out differences, if any,” an official said.
•The SP Mukherjee committee, which is working towards the issue of minimum wages, is yet to complete its task. Setting a national minimum wage is important in the implementation of the Code on Wages. The Centre had recently said that the ambit of Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) will be expanded to all districts within two years.
•Social security for unorganised workers is a promise in the Code on Social Security and expansion of ESIC network is an unavoidable step for this purpose.
What are some of the concerns?
•The central trade unions in the Opposition camp are opposed to all the four codes. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-supported trade union, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), is opposed to the Industrial Relations Code and certain provisions of the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions.
•According to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, one of the central trade unions said the exercise “is aimed at pushing out a large section of the workforce out of the coverage of all labour laws through increasing the threshold level of employment in an establishment and repealing of a big number of labour laws meant for certain specific sections of employees/workers viz., sales promotion employees, working journalists, etc.”
•The BMS has been maintaining that the codes should not be implemented at one go. “The differences must be resolved by mutual dialogue. We have our concerns about the code on Industrial Relations, specifically on the provisions for the registration and working of central trade unions. Our advice to the government is that it should implement only those sections and codes where there is a larger unanimity among the workers, employers and the government,” said BMS general secretary Binoy Kumar Sinha.
•The employers’ associations like Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) had expressed reservation on the proposal for increasing the minimum wages and expanding the social security network by involving the employers too.
What lies ahead?
•The trade unions are warning about more protests if the codes are implemented. They say that the Centre will have to repeal it the way it repealed the three farm laws.
•The Centre, too, is worried about the political fallout of its implementation and thus, this could also be a possible reason for the delay. The employers are worried that further increase in the salary bill will hamper their profits in a recession-hit economy and they expect the government to hold more discussions.
📰 Bridging the gap
India needs to help women get greater access to jobs and resources
•The struggle to achieve gender equality and bridge the gap between men and women is a long and difficult one. India has got another opportunity to do much better for half of its population with the Global Gender Gap Index for 2022, released by the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, placing it at 135 out of 146 countries. But the new data — India’s ranking in 2021 was 140 out of 156 countries — hardly brings cheer as India has fared the worst in at least one of the parameters — ‘health and survival’ — in which it took the last spot. The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival, and political empowerment. India ranks poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bhutan. Only Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan perform worse than India in the region. In 2022, coming on the back of a pandemic, war and economic crises, the global gender gap has been closed by 68.1%, which means at the current rate of progress it will take 132 years to reach full parity. Among all the regions, it will take the longest for South Asia to reach the target — 197 years — “due to a broad stagnation in gender parity scores ... in the region”.
•There have been enough numbers from the ground to indicate that India, with a female population of approximately 66 crore, has faltered on the road to gender parity. In the pandemic years, as incomes shrank, women faced hurdles on every front, from food, health, and education for the girl child to jobs. The latest NFHS data (2019-2021) show that 57% of women (15-49 age bracket) are anaemic, up from 53% in 2015-16; though 88.7% of married women participate in key household decisions, only 25.4% of women, aged 15-49 years, who worked in the last 12 months (2019-2021), were paid in cash. Women having a bank account or savings account that they themselves use have increased to 78.6%, with schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana helping, but women participation in the labour force has shrunk. According to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data, in 2016-17 about 15% women were employed or looking for jobs; this metric dipped to 9.2% in 2021-22. The best way to improve India’s abysmal ranking is to do it right by women. For that, it is imperative to increase representation of women in leadership positions at all levels so that women get greater access to jobs and resources. It is up to the Government to move beyond tokenisms and help women overcome staggering economic and social barriers.
📰 Is protectionism compatible with liberalisation?
There needs to be serious participation by the market forces together with the government
•At a time when the Central government says it is liberalising India’s economy, its economic policymaking on the external front has been marked by rising protectionism. With policies such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, there seems to be a conscious effort to protect the domestic economy from foreign competition. This raises questions on whether the government’s external protectionism is compatible with its promise of liberalising India’s economy. In a discussion moderated by Prashanth Perumal J., Biswajit Dhar and Ajay Shah talk about model of industrial policy that should be the way forward. Excerpts:
Is the government’s external protectionism compatible with its broader liberalisation agenda?
•Biswajit Dhar: The kind of protectionism we are seeing in the name of Atmanirbhar Bharat is disappointing because while there is a case for having an industrial policy, where you invest in industries that you think could be globally competitive, what is happening in India is there is a long list of sectors in which the government has embarked on import substitution that encourages domestic production. What is problematic is that you’re not talking about efficiencies which will make these sectors globally competitive. The emphasis is on producing in India rather than on efficiency.
•Ajay Shah: I want to put out two ideas. One, different countries should specialise in producing different things, and it is not easy for policymakers to understand what India will be good at and what India will be bad at. These are things for markets to discover. I always like to remind us of the story from the 1970s, when policymakers in New Delhi thought that electronics export was going to be a good thing. So, they created the Santacruz Electronic Export Processing Zone (SEEPZ) in Bombay and removed customs duties. By removing protectionism, they thought they were doing a favour to the electronics industry. And 30 years later, when you look back, what came out on top were the software industry and the diamond processing industry. So, the government’s industrial policy was wrong. It was not in electronics where there was a fabulous opportunity for India; it was in software and diamonds. The point is, the market economy knows how to discover these things, policymakers don’t.
•The second idea is a very simple intuition: every time you cut customs duties, every time you remove elements of protectionism, firms in India which are users of those goods become more competitive. So, we grow exports from India by making raw materials cheaper. Again, one man’s output is another man’s input. Policymakers cannot tell what they should be backing. So, the wild strategy is to just remove all barriers to globalisation. That is the best path for us as a country.
Is the Centre’s external protectionism merely a reflection of its domestic economic policies?
•BD: Yes. We have been hearing about getting red tape out of the way for 30 years, but instead of getting it out of the way, I think it’s just piling on. Ease of doing business is a major issue. It’s clear that if the government doesn’t get its act together domestically, including the institutions and all, it’s not going to get any kind of investment — foreign investment or domestic. That’s going to be a huge problem. There’s been this discussion going on for the past 33 years as to why China or other Southeast Asian countries have been attracting foreign investment, while in India, with successive governments saying we have the most investor-friendly policy, investors are not investing long term. So, external and domestic reforms have to go hand in hand.
•AS: There are many pieces to the problem that need to be sorted out. But we have to be strategic when we think about where the bottlenecks are. We need to debate the important bottlenecks that are impeding India’s participation in global supply chains and in the world of globalised production. And I want to link this with the labour market where we need to figure out where those domestic bottlenecks are that are holding back large-scale labour-intensive investment in India.
Doesn’t discretionary government policy in the name of Atmanirbhar Bharat bring along with it the risk of possible favouritism towards special interest groups?
•AS: It’s easy to impute motives and worry about corruption, but I actually worry about one basic thing, which is that nobody knows the future. It is very difficult to look at the future and figure out which Indian industry is going to do well and which is going to do badly. I mentioned the example of the SEEPZ. Those were some of the smartest people in the country at that time who were involved in economic policymaking. But they were not able to figure out that opportunity in India lay in software and diamonds, and not in electronics. So, I think that the market economy is a great method of discovery. It is a tool for figuring out what works and what doesn’t. It involves taking risks. Many private people have to try many things. Some will work, some will not work. It is not in the nature of bureaucracies to experiment. Industrial policy requires having a high level of knowledge, forecasting capability, and intellectual capacity in government. And you know, frankly, nobody in the world has the ability to forecast what’s going to happen five or 10 years out in the future. I feel we should all be modest and say that we don’t know. Let the market economy do the job of risk-taking, making mistakes, etc. Many firms will go bankrupt, and many industries will shut down. That’s okay. That’s how we find out what works and what doesn’t.
•BD: I think policy should be made by the government and industries having a dialogue. This has been the reason behind the success story of many Southeast Asian countries. They have not just let the market do whatever it wanted to. There was serious participation by the industry, or the market forces, together with the government. The government has to play the important role of a facilitator. And that kind of a dialogue really took place in Japan, [South] Korea, and many Southeast Asian countries. Singapore is another example. That is the way India should go. We tried to rely just on market forces for the better part of the last 30 years, but we didn’t make much headway. And in the process, we found that most productive sectors have been lagging behind. So, the moment the economy was exposed to foreign competition, we started finding the lack of depth in different sectors across the board. To overcome this, the government needs to hear what the players on the ground need, and respond adequately. To my mind, that is the model of industrial policy that is the way forward.
Why shouldn’t the Indian consumer be allowed to buy foreign goods if they are cheaper and better?
•AS: That is an act of government coercion, where the government stands in the middle and interferes with the ability of an Indian consumer to buy something from abroad or the ability of an Indian firm to buy something from abroad or the ability of an engineering firm to raise capital from a cheaper source abroad, and so on. And I really feel uncomfortable with the readiness and the willingness of policymakers to use the coercive power of the state in such fashion. People know what’s best for them. If a person wants to buy something from a vendor outside the country, why is it better when the government interferes? I feel that’s a fundamental question of freedom that needs to be brought on the table.
•BD: I do think that ad hoc protectionism is not really the way forward because ultimately we are living in a market economy and there has to be the freedom to choose. But I think we are actually talking about something more fundamental in the sense that we are looking at issues relating to falling competitiveness of Indian industry. What kind of a road map are you going to be following to get around the problem? The situation is increasingly becoming grim because due to the lack of competitiveness we are seeing the Indian economy suffer. If this situation continues, it would be very difficult to keep the macro fundamentals in check. Things are going to go pretty awry. I would say we need to look at how we are going to be on a more sustained pathway as far as our balance of payments is concerned. Our current account deficit is already threatening to go out of control. You need to have a government and industry partnership. The industry needs to identify the pain points, and they should ask the government to address these issues. For instance, the innovation sector the world over has needed a lot of government support. We saw what happened during the pandemic. Most of the major vaccines that were produced by these big pharmaceutical giants had substantial government backing. The government needs to play the role of a facilitator, and that’s a very important role without which I don't think we are going to get into a sustained pathway.
•AS: I agree, but then we have to confront the difficulties of state capacity in India. We are an underdeveloped country, and the capabilities in state structures are quite limited. In many ways we have actually not fared well in the last 20 years. So, we should be very cautious about what kind of mandate we wish to give the Indian state given its limitations.
Are we getting closer to the pre-1991 era of trade protectionism?
•BD: It’s not about how far or how close we are to the pre-1991 policy climate. I think it’s about the trend and the trend seems to be towards the Nehruvian model of self-reliance. You can call it Atmanirbhar Bharat or by any other name, but it’s self-reliance at the end of the day. The second thing that worries me about the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme are is that incentives are linked to certain capacities. That reminded me of a policy that was followed during the industrial licensing era, which was called the minimum economic scale. The government was telling the industry what could be the minimum economic scale and then directing the industry to produce along those lines. The PLI and its incentives at different levels smack of that kind of a policy. It’s the direction, not really the distance, that worries me. If you’re following this direction, there is a danger of reaching that someday, and that could be problematic in my view.
•AS: One measure that we should be thinking about is the weighted average tariff rate which is compiled by the World Bank. The rough picture is that there’s been no significant change in that number (6%) since 2008. So I don’t think there’s been a significant movement away from where we were earlier. That said, there are many other elements of protectionism which are not just about tariffs. Most importantly, it is about equal treatment of foreign companies. I feel that a lot of the regulatory system is moving in ways where national champions get policy support and foreign companies do not. I think that is the more worrisome thing to think about.
📰 The debate around the Forest Conservation Rules
What are the Forest Conservation Rules and how will it affect forest dwellers and tribals? What is the government’s position on the updated rules?
•Forest Conservation Rules prescribe the procedure to be followed for forest land to be diverted for non-forestry uses such as road construction, and highway development.
•The latest version of the rules, which consolidates changes to the Act over the years from various amendments and court ruling, was made public on June 28, 2022.
•Prior to the updated rules, state bodies would forward documents to the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) that would include information on the status of whether the forest rights of locals in the area were settled.
•The story so far: The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sparred earlier this week on the latest version of the Forest Conservation Rules. Congress spokesperson, Jairam Ramesh, alleged that the latest version of the rules, updated last month, allowed forest land to be diverted to industry without settling questions of the rights of forest dwellers and tribals who resided on those lands. The Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav and Tribal Affairs Minister, Arjun Munda, denied these claims.
What are the Forest Conservation Rules?
•The Forest Conservation Rules deal with the implementation of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980. They prescribe the procedure to be followed for forest land to be diverted for non-forestry uses such as road construction, highway development, railway lines, and mining.
•The broad aims of the Forest Conservation Act are to protect forest and wildlife, put brakes on State governments’ attempts to hive off forest land for commercial projects and striving to increase the area under forests.
•For forest land beyond five hectares, approval for diverting land must be given by the Central government. This is via a specially constituted committee, called the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC).
•This committee examines whether the user agency, or those who have requested forest land, have made a convincing case for the upheaval of that specific parcel of land, whether they have a plan in place to ensure that the ensuing damage — from felling of trees in that area, denuding the local landscape — will be minimal and the said piece of land doesn’t cause damage to wildlife habitat.
•Once the FAC is convinced and approves (or rejects a proposal), it is forwarded to the concerned State government where the land is located, who then has to ensure that provisions of the Forest Right Act, 2006, a separate Act that protects the rights of forest dwellers and tribals over their land, are complied with.
•The FAC approval also means that the future users of the land must provide compensatory land for afforestation as well as pay the net present value (ranging between ₹10-15 lakh per hectare.)
What do the updated rules say?
•The latest version of the rules, which consolidates changes to the Act over the years from various amendments and court ruling, was made public on June 28, 2022.
•Parliament is scheduled to begin its monsoon session on July 18, 2022 and the law requires that the rules be placed before both the Houses. The new rules, according to the Centre, “streamline” the process of approvals. The rules make a provision for private parties to cultivate plantations and sell them as land to companies who need to meet compensatory forestation targets.
•This, according to the government, will help India increase forest cover as well as solve the problems of the States of not finding land within their jurisdiction for compensatory purposes. While this has invited its own controversy, the latest point of contention is the absence of wording, in the updated Forest Conservation Rules, of what happens to tribals and forest-dwelling communities whose land would be hived off for developmental work.
•Prior to the updated rules, state bodies would forward documents to the FAC that would also include information on the status of whether the forest rights of locals in the area were settled.
•After 2009, the Environment Ministry passed an order mandating that proposals would not be entertained by the FAC unless there was a letter from the State specifying that the forest rights in the place had been “settled” and the gram sabha, or the governing body in villages in the area, had given their written consent to the diversion of forest.
•However, there have been a series of orders by the Environment Ministry over the years, and frequently opposed by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, that have sought to skirt the necessity for consent from the gram sabha.
•The new rules formally codify this and say that a project, once approved by the FAC, will then be passed on to the State authorities who will collect the compensatory fund and land, and process it for final approval.
•Only in passing, is it mentioned that the States will ensure “settlement” of Forest Rights Acts applicable. This, many forestry experts say, doesn’t automatically imply the consent of the resident tribals and forest dwellers.
What is the government’s position?
•Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav rebutted Mr. Ramesh underlining that fulfilling and complying with the FRA, 2006 was an independent process and could be undertaken by States “at any stage” of the forest clearance process and that complying with provisions of the FRA is mentioned in the rules before States order diversion of the land. However, he said, it had to be completed before granting approval for land diversion.
•The purpose of updating these rules, said Mr. Yadav, was to “streamline the approval process.”
How well has the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) been implemented so far?
•A 2019 analysis by the Legal Initiative for Forests and Environment has found that the FAC generally approves land for diversion without examining questions around consent as it relies on the State government to ensure that this is done.
•In the first six months of 2019, of the 240 proposals that were considered for diversion of forest land for non-forestry purposes, 193 proposals were recommended, 40 proposals were deferred for later consideration and seven rejected. Recommendation for 193 proposals meant 9,220.64 hectares of forest land were recommended for diversion for non-forestry purposes such as roads, railways, mining, irrigation, infrastructure and hydel power.
