Fate of Vidarbha projects uncertain

To handle these pending cases an officer of the rank of Deputy Secretary was specially posted in the city by the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance government soon after it came to power. High hopeswere raised when the office, which was formally inaugurated by the Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, started functioning in the right earnest. But before it’s job was over, the State Government inexplicably decided to shift the office from the city. The decision was taken quietly in February when the attention was focussed on the Lok Sabha election.

Before the Deputy Secretary’s office was located in city, several serious complications were faced while securing clearance to projects in Vidarbha region where forest land is submerge. The issue got more complicated in respect of projects in eastern Vidarbha because of the classification of certain forest lands as `zudpi jungle’.

To obtain environmental clearance to such projects, it was necessary to submit detailed proposals about the forest land to be submerged, about the land identified for carrying out compensatory afforestation and funds allocated for the purpose of afforestation. So complicated is the nature of the problem that several proposals prepared bythe irrigation department officials in the past were rejected by the Union Ministry on technical grounds.

These projects, together, would submerge about 19,000 hectare forest and `zudpi jungle’ land in eastern Vidarbha.