Degraded Land will be leased out for cultivation under PPP model, New Forest Policy on Anvil

Degraded Land will be leased out to private companies under PPP model: Javadekar

NEW DELHI: To decrease the timber import in India govt is planning to connect degraded land to private companies for wood cultivation. The Pulp and Paper Times has already raised this subject in its pervious May issue. Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) has been demanding to bring waste land under cultivation since 2004. Union Minister of Environment Prakash Javadekar (see the picture) said that his ministry is planning to give degraded land to private companies under lease agreement. “We have prepared guidelines for a PPP model in which degraded land will be given on lease to private companies who can harvest wood, use it and continue the chain which will help in creating more carbon sink.” He added during an interaction on Transforming India on mygov.in.

Currently, India imports Rs 40,000 crore worth of timber.

According to Indian Paper Manufacturers Association (IPMA) India is a wood fibre deficient country, with the domestic demand supply gap in wood widening every year. Currently, the wood and bamboo demand of the paper industry is around 11 million tonnes, and is expected to increase to 15 million tonnes by 2024-25. Shortage of supply with exponential rise in prices of wood is adversely impacting the competitive edge of the industry and the domestic manufacturers are ceding ground to cheaper imports. It is therefore, important to bring down import duty on raw materials to nil. With 'nil' duty wood logs / chips and bamboos can be imported from all ASEAN countries while will benefit largely to coastal based paper manufacturing plants. Import scenario is likely to worsen in future with widening gap between production and consumption. IPMA estimates India's paper production and consumption at 22 million tonnes and 23.5 million tonnes respectively by 2024-25.

"Its a challenging work. On one hand we have to improve the quality of forest, improve methods of scientific management of forest, use degraded land which is 30 per cent of forest area, we also have to incentivise more forest cover outside forest area," Javadekar said.

The paper industry requires 11 million tonnes of wood and bamboo of which around 75% is met through industry driven agro / social forestry and the rest from the government sources and imports.

Centre Govt. will soon come out with a new forest policy empowering to frame their own policies so that the target of achieving 33 per cent forest cover throughout the country is achieved. Mr. Javadekar said that his Ministry will in July convene a meeting of state Forest and Environment ministers regarding the issue and to deliberate on other aspects related to improving forest quality, scientific management of forests will also be done. The Union minister said that his Ministry will also frame courses aimed at enhancing skills for people working in the field of environment, forest and climate change.

Web Title: Degraded Land will be leased out for cultivation under PPP model New Forest Policy on Anvil