Two-member panel meets with officials concerned; to submit report to the Apex Court in a month 

 

Pursuant to directions of the Supreme Court, a two-member Central Empowered Committee (CEC) visited the region to review the Zudpi Jungle issue. Chandraprakash Goyal and Sunil Limaye, on Monday, arrived in city and held confabulations with State Government officers on the contentious matter. A meeting was held at Divisional Commissionerate where the team took a review of the ground situation and problems affecting development due to categorisation of sparse vegetation as Zudpi Jungle. Divisional Commissioner Vijayalaksmi Bidari, officials of Revenue Department, including Collectors of all six districts in the Division along with Principal Chief Conservator of Forest were present in the meeting.

 

The categorisation of small bushes as jungle has created several problems as this stalled the diversion of land for irrigation projects aimed at providing irrigation to lakhs of hectares of farm land in Nagpur Division. Seeking permission for using the Zudpi Jungle land has become a major hurdle as anything meaning jungle, in normal terms it means dense tree cover, leads to issue of conservation and this has resulted in status quo in respect of development initiatives of State Government. Since last seven decades, development projects were stalled in the Division due to legalities pointed out by Forest Department as it goes by the rule book ruling out any possibility of using forest land for other than plantation.

 

This is also a major reason for irrigation backlog in Nagpur Division as it has one of the largest forest cover that is already a flash point vis-a-vis development, additional the Zudpi Jungle grounded any major project aimed at easing the lives of citizens. As the issue reached the Apex Court, it formed a CEC to take a holistic review and submit the report. The CEC as such took stock of ground situation, listened to Revenue Department officials, the Collectors also put forward their view and it was recorded by the two expert members. The CEC members also went to ground and surveyed the land that is earmarked as zudpi jungle.

 

They are tasked with listing the problems on ground in each of the affected district of division. At the outset, Divisional Commissioner gave power point presentation to the CEC, listing the major issue being faced by administration in meeting the expectations of citizens due to inability to utilise open land with small bushes for development. The two members understood the issue in detail and they are going to submit their report within one month period. PCCF Narendra Zurmure, District Collectors Vinay Gowda (Chandrapur), Dr Sanjay Kolte (Bhandara), Avinash Panda (Gadchiroli), Prajit Nair (Gondia) and Vanmathi C (Wardha) along with Additional Collector Tushar Thombre (Nagpur) attended the meet.