Government’s flip-flop on forest policy

In a flip-flop, the environment ministry on Saturday said it had “inadvertently” uploaded a “study” and “not issued” any draft forest policy, days after it put up a document, titled the Draft National Forest Policy 2016, on its website and sought public opinion.

The ministry said the study done by Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) in Bhopal was “inadvertently” uploaded on its website as draft forest policy.

“The ministry has not issued any draft notification on National Forest Policy. What has been uploaded on the website was a study done by Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal. The study has not been evaluated by the ministry.

“The ministry has not taken any decision on draft forest policy. The study report prepared by IIFM, Bhopal was inadvertently uploaded as draft forest policy on the website,” said S.S. Negi, director-general, forests, and special secretary, environment ministry.

The ministry had uploaded the draft national forest policy on its website which, once ratified, would have replaced the 1988 policy. The document, a copy of which is in possession of PTI, said “the draft of the National Forest Policy, 2016, has been prepared by the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal (IIFM) based on village level focus group discussions... regional and national level consultations, inputs from various stakeholders and analysis of primary and secondary datasets carried out during the years 2015 and 2016.”

There were also reports that the ministry, after uploading the document, had given very little time for stakeholders to comment on it. Mr Negi said the ministry has an elaborate procedure of preparing a draft policy and no such process has been undertaken by it.

“As director-general, forest, I would like to clarify that this document is not the draft forest policy. The ministry has an elaborate procedure for preparing draft policy document, which takes into account multiple inputs from all stakeholders, state governments, think tanks and public consultation.

“No process has been carried out on the document prepared by IIFM, Bhopal, which is only one of the inputs. A draft forest policy will be put in the public domain once due process is carried out and views of all stakeholders are taken into account,” Mr Negi said.