PANJIM: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has allowed homestead owners in Goa’s private and deemed forests to construct residential buildings, according to a letter sent by the Ministry to the Goa government.
However, the ban on construction of institutional and commercial buildings on such land remains under the new guidelines. A decision to this effect was taken in MoEF&CC’s Forest Clearance Advisory Committee meeting with reference to Goa and Uttarakhand.
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The construction, previously not allowed, has been made possible because of the latest amendment of the Forest Conservation Act or the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam which exempts unrecorded deemed forests and private plantations from its purview, removing the protection that such areas enjoyed under the older law. These exemptions are also incorporated in a handbook of consolidated guidelines on the amendment.
The advisory committee has said that the existing guidelines on construction of residential or dwelling houses in the Private area (Deemed Forest) of Goa as well as Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) areas of Uttarakhand as well as may be retained as under: Construction activity for residential purpose in private forest shall be allowed only for domestic purpose and shall not be extended to any institutional buildings or commercial development; the construction activities shall be restricted to a maximum of 250 square metres of built-up area in each case; the construction of residential building in private forest is permitted in MDDA areas and other parts of Uttarakhand and Goa only in order to alleviate hardship of homestead owners for constructing/completing their bonafide residential buildings.
For deciding the status of the homestead, the cut of date will be February 11, 2011 and the limit of 250 square metres will be applicable to such owner. In case of any sub-division of ownership of the forest land post February 11, 2011, the construction activities shall be restricted in such a way that the total of all construction activities in such sub-divided portions post February 11, 2011 should not exceed a maximum of 250 square metre of built-up area and that the permission will be subject to tree felling should be minimum, sufficient soil conservation measures should be taken and permission of regulatory bodies for construction in hill areas shall be obtained.
The MoEF&CC has specified that these stipulations are strictly restricted to construction of residential or dwelling houses in private forest land in MDDA areas of Uttarakhand and Goa, where non-forest land is not available.
The ministry has also categorically stated that the term Homestead needs to be defined as it may be misused and may result in mushrooming of construction activities in the MDDA and other similar private forest areas.
