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Forest panel to hold meeting flouting CIC orders -Nitin Sethi

-The Times of India

The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), under the ministry of forests and environment, has scheduled yet another meeting on Friday for clearing projects in violation of the Central Information Commission (CIC) orders. Earlier, the commission had pulled up environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan for a similar transgression.

In February, the CIC had demanded that the ministry must share with public the details of projects to be cleared ahead of the Forest Advisory Committee's (FAC) consideration. The FAC is the statutory body that advises the ministry on handing over forestlands to project developers. The Commission had ordered that all details of the project proposals be put out in public domain at least 10 days before the FAC considers the cases.

In the past, Natarajan had intervened to cancel a FAC meeting after TOI reported that it was being held in violation of the CIC orders.

Partial data for the 28 proposals to be considered in Friday's meeting were put out on the ministry website on Wednesday. And, the lack of details in public domain on the proposals that are to be decided upon by FAC obviates the chances of any aggrieved party to counter the proposals put forth by state government for clearing forests on behalf of project developers.

The meeting — to be held on Friday and Saturday — is slated to consider some big-ticket projects such as the controversial 320mw Stage-1 and 530mw Stage-II Kotlibhel projects on river Alaknanda in Uttarakhand, the 520mw Teesta Stage IV hydel project in Sikkim and opening up of another 1,400 hectares of forestland by Mahanadi Coal Fields in Odisha's Jharsuguda mines.

FAC consists of senior forest officials and three independent experts. Currently, one of the non-official slots on the panel is vacant.