CAG ticks off Forest Department

BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government has been blaming the Centre for poor allocation of funds under compensatory afforestation scheme, the CAG has pulled up the Forest Department for not demanding funds from three lease-holders for wildlife management plan. The Centre approved diversion of 3,586 hectares of forest land in favour of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) between November 2004 and June 2009 for open cast and underground mining of coal in Angul  district. During the same period, another 377.78 hectares of lease-hold forest area was diverted to Ferro Alloys Corporation Limited (Facor) and Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) in Dhenkanal district. Project reports indicated existence of wildlife in all the forest land diverted for the mining purpose. The three lease-holders are supposed to deposit ` 7.93 crore with the Government towards the cost of implementation of the wildlife management plan. While the user agencies did not deposit the amount till August last year, the DFOs of the forest divisions concerned had not raised the demand for it, the audit report said. In 2005, the State Government approved the implementation of a comprehensive wildlife management plan, to be implemented over 10 years, by raising funds from the mining lease-holders. Initially, the rate  per hectare was ` 15,000 which was revised to `20,000 per hectare in 2008. The funds realised under the wildlife management plan are credited to the compensatory afforestation management plan account (CAMPA) fund of the State. A sum of ` 87.13 crore was collected from the lease-holders till  November 2010 and credited to CAMPA fund which is monitored by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF). Meanwhile, the State Government has approved an annual plan of ` 166.02 crore for 2011-12 for compensatory afforestation.